France and Britain’s pensions are a burden on the youth.

By Jake Scott

France and Britain have both built welfare systems that may have begun life as humane responses to social need, but have since ossified into fiscal traps.

Nowhere is this clearer than in pensions. In France, retirees enjoy not only earlier retirement than their European peers but also far larger state transfers, a problem that has been brewing since the end of the Second World War. In Britain, this problem goes back even further, with a system that predates even the legacy of the National Health Service, grown from roots in the Liberal reforms of the 1910s.

The result is a perverse inversion: “over-65s now have higher average incomes than the working-age population—unique both internationally and in France’s own history.” Pensions are now so bloated that they consumed one-sixth of the national defense budget last year, stopping France from meeting NATO’s 2% target. It puts even greater strain on the country as it tries to meet the increased 4% target that Trump is pushing for.

Emmanuel Macron’s modest proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 provoked mass strikes and protests across the country. Michel Barnier’s suggestion of delaying a pension rise by six months helped topple a government, while François Bayrou’s refusal to cut pledges contributed to........

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