France's new Socialist government moved Wednesday to lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 years old for certain workers, bucking a global trend in a gesture to unions that critics say is a costly mistake. 
 
 Governments from North America to Europe have been pushing retirement ages higher and higher in recent decades, as people live longer and spend more years on state-sponsored pension checks. 
 
 New French President Francois Hollande, who won election last month on a wave of voter anger at austerity measures, proved Wednesday that his leftist campaign rhetoric was not just bluster. 
 
 Raising France's legal retirement age was one of conservative former President Nicolas Sarkozy's key reforms, aimed at reducing heavy government debts as Europe sunk into a continent-wide financial crisis. The reform met huge, nationwide protests _ yet many economists said it didn't push the retirement age high enough. 
 
 The minimum retirement age went from 60 to 62, and the age to receive a full pension regardless of how many years you pay into the system went from 65 to 67. 
 
 On Wednesday, Hollande's government presented a draft decree at a Cabinet meeting that reverses the retirement age to 60 for those who enter the workforce at 18 or 19 years old and have contributed long enough to the pension system. The right to retire at 60 was seen as a pillar of France's social benefit system for decades. 
 
 The government said the decree, affecting about one in six retiring workers, will be finalized later this month and take effect in November. 
 
 The decree also slightly eases pension requirements for mothers, noting "the impact of motherhood on women's careers," and for people who suffer workplace accidents. 
 
 The hard-left CGT union hailed the move as a "striking decision that breaks with policies everywhere in Europe." 
 
 The government says the costs _ estimated at (EURO)1.1 billion ($1.37 billion) next year _ will be financed by a small rise in payroll charges paid by employers and employees. The government did not release a global cost for the measure. 
 
 Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine said the decree is a "choice for justice." Critics in France's powerful unions said Sarkozy's reform had unfairly punished low-income, unskilled workers. 
 
 Sarkozy and his allies argued that French workers had it too good, while busy workers in places like China and India are propelling their economies ahead. 
 
 France's leading business lobby, MEDEF, criticized the Hollande government's decree as "worrying for the financial future of the pension systems and for the competitiveness of businesses." Conservative politicians denounced it as short-sighted. 
 
 The Socialist Cabinet is making the change by decree, amending an existing decree on workers who serve especially long careers, instead of via a law, which would need approval by the lower house of parliament, currently dominated by conservatives. 
 
 France is holding parliamentary elections starting Sunday, and Hollande needs to secure a leftist majority to accomplish much of what he pledged on the campaign trail. 
 
 His push to lower the retirement age goes against demography: People in France live longer than almost anyone else in the world, with a growing life expectancy of 85 years for women and 78 for men. 
 
 And it goes against the global tide. 
 
 The full retirement age in the United States is being gradually raised from 65 to 67. Germany recently raised the legal retirement age for most people to 65 for women and 67 for men. 
 
 In Italy, a few years ago some workers could retire as young as 50, but new austerity measures under Premier Mario Monti put an end to that. The retirement age was raised from 65 to 66 for men, starting this year. For women, it was raised from 60 to 66, starting in 2018. 
 
 Three decades ago, France's retirement age, at 65, was among the highest in Europe. In 1982, late Socialist President Francois Mitterrand lowered it to 60. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Angela Charlton in Paris, Juergen Baetz in Berlin and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report. ||||| France’s Senate approved President Nicolas Sarkozy’s bill to raise the retirement age by two years as labor unions promised to maintain their protests for an eighth week. 
 
 Lawmakers in the Sarkozy-controlled upper house of Parliament voted 177 to 153 late yesterday, clearing the way for final passage. A comparable measure was approved by the National Assembly on Sept. 15. A panel comprising members of both chambers is scheduled to meet Oct. 25 to merge the bills. 
 
 “Once a law is approved it must be applied,” Labor Minister Eric Woerth told Le Figaro in an interview published today as unions called for a seventh strike the day following the Oct. 27 final vote. “The stakes goes beyond pensions: it’s about France’s image and our ability to go pass our old demons, get over immobility.” 
 
 Senate passage of the bill won’t quell opposition to the plan to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60 and the age for a full pension to 67 from 65. Protests have disrupted transport and shut oil refineries, leading to fuel shortages. 
 
 “We will never accept it,” Jean-Claude Mailly, secretary general of Force Ouvriere union, said on RMC radio. “Just because a law has been voted through doesn’t mean we just say: ‘Oh, too bad.’” 
 
 Risk Premium 
 
 Sarkozy has refused to retreat from the plan that would bring France closer to Germany and the U.S., which are moving toward setting 67 as the full-retirement age, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 
 
 The retirement overhaul is needed to balance the pension system’s budget by 2018, Sarkozy says. The changes are part of his effort to reduce the total deficit. This year, the gap will stand at 7.7 percent of gross domestic product and Sarkozy plans to cut it to 6 percent next year. 
 
 Since the unions’ first protest strike, the risk premium on French bonds has increased. Investors demand 40 basis points more to buy 10-year French bonds than comparable German securities, against 30 basis points on Sept. 6. 
 
 Union spokesmen and the opposition Socialist Party said the law should not be enacted and demanded the government craft a new pension overhaul plan. Violence broke out at protests this week, prompting Sarkozy to threaten a crackdown on “rioters.” 
 
 Speeding the Vote 
 
 Sarkozy also ordered striking staff at Total SA’s Grandpuits refinery southeast of Paris, one of the 11 that have been shut by protests, back to work yesterday. 
 
 Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said today the Paris region and western France are most hit, with about 35 percent of the service stations being disrupted. He added, in an interview with Europe 1 radio, that highway stations are functioning properly, as French people started yesterday the All Saints week-long holiday. 
 
 Seeking to mute the disruptions, the government moved to speed parliamentary passage of the bill, invoking a rule that allows the Senate to cast a single vote on the legislation and 200 remaining amendments. 
 
 “See you at the next elections,” Socialist Senator Jean- Pierre Bel told the majority Union for a Popular Movement in the debate. “What you are doing with pensions is going to stick to you like glue.” 
 
 The effect of the disruptions on France’s economy “is not significant,” said Laurence Boone, an economist at Barclays Capital in Paris. 
 
 ‘Very Difficult’ 
 
 “For the moment nothing is dramatic but we’re at a crossroad. If the protest continues, it will be very difficult,” Jean-Francois Roubaud, the head of the small and medium business group told Le Parisien daily. “We can’t afford being blocked by this social protest,” he said. 
 
 A 22-day strike in 1995 cut 0.2 percentage points from GDP for one quarter. “To date, there have been only a few days of strikes, and these were not observed 100 percent” as a result of a law that requires minimum service levels in key industries and that didn’t exist in 1995, Boone said. 
 
 The French Chemical Industry Union said in a statement it is losing “100 million euros ($140 million) a day” because of the strikes, without giving details. 
 
 Jean-Louis Schilansky, head of the refiners’ group Union Francaise des Industries Petroliers, said today that France is currently importing about 100,000 tons of fuel daily, compared with 20,000 to 25,000 tons in normal days. “The situation in France starts having an impact on markets, costs a getting higher,” he said, Le Point weekly’s website reported. 
 
 Environment and Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told reporters yesterday that “no refinery is working in France,” forcing the state to order “massive imports.” The country’s 12 crude-processing plants have ceased working since Oct. 12. 
 
 Air France has lost 25 million euros in revenue. Thierry Gregoire, president of hotel federation UMIH, said on BFM that cancelations are running 50 percent above normal. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
– As US voters and legislators are snipping workers' benefits, a nation on the other side of the pond is taking a different approach. France's new socialist president, François Hollande, is lowering the minimum retirement age by two years, reports the Telegraph. Those who begin work at the age of 18 and pay enough into the pension system can now retire with benefits at the age of 60. The move fulfills a campaign promise, and reverses the work of Nicolas Sarkozy, who raised the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, sparking a storm of national protests. Hollande cited "social justice" as the reason for the move, which runs counter to austerity measures being taken by much of Europe. Hollande announced the change just as unemployment in France hit 10% for the first quarter—the highest in 12 years. The expected $1.37 billion cost of extra pensions is to be covered by more payroll fees for employers and workers. The leftist CGT union hailed the move, which will take effect in November, as a "striking decision that breaks with policies everywhere in Europe." The leading business lobby blasted it as "worrying for the financial future of the pension systems and for the competitiveness of businesses." France used to have one of the highest retirement ages in Europe—65. It was cut by François Mitterand to 60 in 1982, notes the AP. Pension costs are high in France, particularly because the French have one of the highest life expectancies in the world: 85 for women, and 78 for men.