On October 17, 2026, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across France.
Frustration over schools short of teachers, rising living costs and inadequate public services grew into nationwide protests. Violence and looting broke out in some areas, shaking French society.
The protests, attended by an estimated 550,000 people according to the government and 800,000 according to organizers, showed just how dissatisfied French citizens are with their lives today.
But the government, which must respond to citizens’ demands, faces another reality.
A Deficit That Has Lasted 51 Years
For a long time, France has spent more than it earns.
In 2025, French general government revenue stood at 52.2% of GDP and spending at 57.3%. The resulting fiscal deficit reached €152.5 billion.
Public debt rose to 115.7% of GDP, while France has run a deficit for 51 years since it last recorded a fiscal surplus in 1974.
To understand the roots of this fiscal structure, we need to look at the kind of society France built after World War II.
After rapid economic growth following World War II, France used those gains to expand social protections, including pensions, health care and education, building a system in which the state took broad responsibility for citizens’ lives.
Security in old age, protection against illness and access to education came to be seen as rights that society should guarantee collectively, rather than leave solely to an individual’s financial means.
But as economic growth slowed and the population aged, the financial burden of maintaining these systems began to grow.
Tax cuts, the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis, among other factors, combined to accelerate the growth of France’s public debt.
Citizens Are Already Paying a Lot
Yet it is hard to argue that France’s fiscal problems arose because its citizens do not pay enough in taxes.
In 2024, France’s tax and social security contribution revenue amounted to 43.5% of GDP, well above the OECD average of 34.1%. The gap is even more striking compared with South Korea’s 25.3%.
For years, French citizens have borne a high tax burden while relying on a social system in which the state provides for retirement, health care and education.
Indeed, a substantial share of French public spending goes toward sustaining citizens in retirement and in everyday life.
In 2024, social protection spending, including pensions and other social benefits, accounted for about 41% of all public spending. Substantial resources also went to health care and education.
In government fiscal statistics, this money may be classified as spending that can be cut. But in citizens’ daily lives, it is the pension paid each month, the health care that reduces hospital bills and the schools where children can learn.
Changing the State’s Promise
This is why every attempt by the French government to reform pensions and welfare meets fierce resistance.
The government talks about the sustainability of the system. Citizens worry that the promises on which they have built their lives may change.
For someone who has paid contributions throughout a working life and expected to retire at a set age, being told to work longer means more than a simple change in policy.
For someone who has planned housing, spending and savings around expected retirement income, a pension cut amounts to being told to redesign the retirement they have spent years preparing for.
In 2015, then French President François Hollande said that people who paid contributions should be able to predict how much pension they would receive in the future.
That is why it is difficult to persuade citizens who have lived their lives trusting a system long maintained by the state that its promise must now change.
Future Generations Keeping Today’s Promises
But leaving the current system unchanged creates another problem.
France’s public pension system largely pays retirees with contributions from people currently working. As the population ages, the burden on future generations will inevitably grow.
France’s Pensions Advisory Council projects that the number of contributors per pension recipient will fall from about 1.8 in 2025 to 1.3 in 2070.
That means the next generation will have to sustain, with ever fewer workers, a system designed to give the previous generation security in retirement.
Young people must contend with high housing costs and insecure jobs, save for their own futures and help support their parents’ retirement.
And it is hard to guarantee that they will receive the same level of protection when they retire.
Whose Present Will Be Cut Back?
Does that mean cutting current welfare benefits is the answer to easing the burden on future generations?
According to 2018 estimates from France’s national statistics agency, public services provided in kind, such as education, health care and housing, made up 44% of the bottom 10%’s extended standard of living after redistribution, but only 7% for the top 10%.
That difference shows that cuts to public services do not affect every citizen’s life equally.
A pension may cover just part of living expenses for someone with substantial assets. For someone with little other income, it may be the only way to make ends meet.
Deep cuts to education and health care might reduce spending now, but they could also undermine the next generation’s health and educational opportunities, increasing long-term social costs.
Reforms intended to help future generations must not weaken the foundations of the society in which they will live.
Delaying a Decision Also Has a Cost
But neither can the current system remain in place while decisions are postponed indefinitely.
France’s public debt management agency projects that central government debt servicing costs will rise from €62.6 billion in 2026 to €72.9 billion in 2027.
As debt once borrowed at low interest rates matures and is refinanced at higher rates, the cost of carrying existing debt is rising even without expanding welfare programs.
Higher interest costs leave the government less room to spend on education, health care and future industries. Over the long term, they may even limit the options available to improve public finances.
Ultimately, choosing not to reduce today’s burden can impose another cost on future generations.
Can We Give Up Something Today for Future Generations?
It is easy to agree that the fiscal deficit must be reduced.
But if the cuts affect our parents’ pensions or the money we expect to receive after retirement, can we accept the same conclusion so readily?
It is hard to justify shifting the burden to future generations to preserve today’s welfare benefits. It is equally hard to justify threatening the livelihoods of people living today in the name of the future.
Whether to raise taxes, cut spending or change the system gradually, each choice entails different interests and sacrifices.
The crucial question, then, is not simply how much to cut. It is how society agrees on who should bear the burden, by what criteria and to what extent.
On September 8, 2025, a politician made a final appeal in France’s lower house not to turn away from the reality of the fiscal crisis.
Speaking before a vote of confidence in his government, then Prime Minister François Bayrou told lawmakers:
“You have the power to bring down the government,
but you do not have the power to erase reality.”
Neither the demands of citizens seeking to protect their lives today nor the concern about leaving a heavier burden for the next generation can be easily dismissed.
But while neither side readily gives ground, the country’s debt keeps mounting. Postponing a decision does not make the burden disappear.
The problem France faces ultimately leaves us with a question, too.
What can we give up today for future generations, and how much?
