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Welcome to The Inquiry, I'm Charme Encosia, each week one question,

four expert witnesses and an answer.

January the 19th, 2023, more than a million people are protesting across France.

Members of the country's biggest unions are also on strike.

Uncollected plastic bags of rubbish spill out of overflowing bins onto the streets.

Public transport is disrupted, schools are closed.

Four months later, the civil unrest continues.

Protesters and police clash, public buildings are targeted.

A state visit by the British Monarch, King Charles III, is postponed.

The demonstration stem from a government plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64,

so people would work and pay into the pension system for longer.

There's also concern about what that change might mean,

for those who are many decades away from pension age.

France isn't the only country facing economic efficiency challenges

as populations age and leave the labour market.

So this week we're asking, will Europe's young workers have to pay more for the old?

Part 1, the trade-off.

The younger workers are the ones who feel that they're being ripped off.

Anne Elizabeth Moutet is a French columnist for the Telegraph newspaper.

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