Retirement

We’ve heard a lot about the French retirement system lately, since the reform of that system was the reason for the crippling strikes that we recently suffered through (and may soon be suffering through again). But even with the recent attention on the subject, very little has filtered through the international press explaining why this whole issue is so important.

Retirement is a very important issue to the French. Here’s just one quick anecdote to illustrate the point:

At the office the other day, I was in the break room when three completely useless mailroom guys entered and sat down. They did not see that I was there, as I was on the other side of a partition wall sipping my coffee, and so they continued their discrete conversation, which appears from their hushed voices to be purely a guys-only affair. The lights were off and no one else was present. The three were huddled over the table conspiratorially communicating in whispers. What are these three guys talking about? Sports? Women? Gambling? Cars? They're talking about their retirement plans. I still don’t understand why they were whispering about retirement. Maybe it started out as a normal guy conversation and then segued into a subject closer to their hearts, without bringing their voices back up to a normal level. In any event, retirement talk is all around us.

So, I thought, why? Why is retirement so much more important in France than elsewhere? My theory is that it boils down to three things: they consider it a fundament right, it reflects the French concept of time, and it is consistent with the French work ethic.

Retirement is one of several fundamental rights that do not exist in many other places around the world. Other similarly important rights are the right to education and the right to healthcare. In America, all three of these are generally free market, private issues, so those with the greatest means receive the best resources, while others lack access. Here, despite the burdens this places on the state, healthcare, education and retirement are deemed so important that everyone deserves access.

This emphasis on retirement is also a reflection of the way that they French think of time. The French live much more in all three tenses—past, present and future—than most people. In the U.S., people tend to dwell very little on the past, plan very little for the future and instead live almost exclusively in the present, in the here and now. Part of that is a result of American optimism; one may think “the mistakes of the past aren’t going to hold me down and the future will work out fine, so I’m going to live now.”

In France, on the other hand, the past and future are of utmost importance. Events that we consider to be literally ancient history are remembered here as if they happened yesterday. As one example, I have had numerous conversations with French colleagues in which they explained their hatred for the English on the basis of the Hundred Years’ War, which I knew virtually nothing about before moving here. When that war ended in 1453, the United States was still three centuries from being founded and Columbus wouldn’t even discover America for nearly another four decades. We as a people were as yet far from even existing, while a French national identity had already existed for over six centuries, one that has remained intact for the intervening five-and-a-half centuries and will likely linger for millennia to come. To us, that era is ancient history; to the French, it is yesterday and is just as inextricably linked to today as it is to tomorrow. Take this phenomenon to a personal level and you’ll see far-thinking Americans talking about “five-year plans”, while the French talk about retirement.

From a French perspective, which includes constant reminders of centuries-long history of how things can and often do go wrong, the future is something to take very seriously, plan for and even protect against. That is why this society consumes such a wide variety of insurance products. A typical French person is covered by numerous insurance policies covering everything from physical dismemberment to travel cancellation to lightening-related injuries.

All of this concern for the future naturally leads to a great deal of interest in retirement, which is, after all, the goal that each of us slogging away at work each day is hopefully working towards. This leads right to the third reason for the French focus on retirement planning—their work ethic. Despite all of the griping you hear about the French being lazy and slow, this society actually has a real work ethic. The French idea of adulthood is a steady, consistent work life that begins after college and continues on until retirement at around 60 years of age. This is a lifelong sense of work ethic. In America, many people work very hard (and far more than 35 hours a week) in order to avoid exactly that—a lifetime of hard work. We would rather work hard now and dream of retiring early. The French concept of work ethic may include generous vacation and as little as 35 hours of work per week (although few full-time workers work that little), but it is very much a commitment to spend your adult life working. And at the end of that, there has to be a well-planned retirement waiting for you.