French Social Security Trivia

Other countries face the same problems with their pay-as-you-go, cash-in-cash-out, social security systems that the U.S. does. 

In France that has led to riots of up to a million people. Keep in mind that the population of France is less than a fifth that of the U.S., so that dwarfs anything that's happened here. Ever.

The motivation was the proposed policy to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. 

I learned a few things about this over the last few weeks. 

First, that's a mandatory retirement age for most jobs. Mandatory retirement was largely eliminated in the U.S. during the 1980s. No source for this that I can recall; something on NPR I think.

Second, I may have mentioned that other countries had these systems before the U.S. had them (at the Federal level). In France, the system dates to 1910, when the life expectancy was 51. Now it's 82.