Pension law reforms means French must work longer

PARIS - In a victory for the conservative government, French lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a pension reform bill Thursday despite weeks of protests by people angry about having to work longer to get full retirement benefits.

The government said the measure was needed to prevent the pension system from going bankrupt and collapsing within 20 years. The bill also eliminates the 21/2-year advantage public workers now have over private workers in qualifying for pensions.

The approval after 19 days of debate represented a major political victory for Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who refused to back down despite paralyzing transportation strikes in May and June as air traffic controllers and train and urban transport employees walked off the job.

A 1995 effort to make changes under then-Prime Minister Alain Juppe failed, and later governments sidestepped the issue despite concern over dwindling retirement funds.

Raffarin hailed passage of the bill as a victory for the nation. President Jacques Chirac, who pressed for the reform, is expected to sign the bill within the required 15 days.

"This isn't the victory of one camp against another," Raffarin said during a brief appearance in the lower house, the National Assembly.

He expressed concern about the "scars left by our debate" and promised the government would "do everything in its power to erase any bitterness."

The French president has attributed protests to a lack of understanding of the reform and said dialogue must be the next step.

Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon, who pushed the reform forward, said the bill's passage showed that France is capable of change.

"At a time when it is common to say that France is unreceptive to reform, the proof is here that change is possible," Fillon said from the Senate floor.

However, some of the reform's detractors refused to give up.

Communist lawmaker Alain Bocquet asked the president to call a referendum on the reform, contending that two-thirds of the French people oppose the revised pension plan.

The reform makes fundamental changes to the retirement system.

Besides extending working years, it removes a barrier between the public sector, which has enjoyed special privileges, and the private sector - a taboo in the past.

Public sector workers currently have to work 371/2 years to qualify for full benefits. The measure will require them to stay on the job 40 years, as in the private sector, by 2008.

By 2012, everyone will have to work 41 years to receive full retirement benefits. By 2020, that advances to 42 years.

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