PARIS _ French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe plans to withdraw "provisionally" an effort to raise the age when workers can retire with full benefits, called the pivot age, he said in a letter Saturday to unions.
The potential compromise comes after Friday's hastily arranged negotiations on how to finance state pensions and as union members marched in Paris and elsewhere in France. Strikes have wreaked havoc on large-city transport systems for the past five weeks.
The government agreed on Friday to set up a conference on financing the country's retirement system. Recommendations from that conference will be presented by the end of April, Philippe said in the letter.
While far-left unions are demanding a wholesale rejection of Macron's reform, their more moderate peers support the overarching plan to replace 42 separate pension systems with one universal, points-based arrangement. They have balked, however, at a measure to finance it by introducing penalties and bonuses to encourage later retirement.
The government hopes to win the support of moderate unions _ in particular the CFDT, the largest private sector union _ by giving them an opportunity at the conference to come up with alternative financing solutions.
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