Mason, worker at Amazon or nurse, they are aged from 22 to 60 and perform difficult, even "using" jobs.
While the government is planning a gradual shift in the retirement age to 64, they explain why they are against this reform, which should be presented by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Tuesday January 10.
>> To read: Pensions: is the reform "indispensable", as the government claims?
I never went on strike in my life, but if asked, I will
Dominique, 59 years old, supervisor in mass distribution in Haute-Vienne
I have been in retail for thirty years.
I have already had surgery on both shoulders, to treat tendonitis due to repetitive movements and heavy loads that I carry throughout the day.
Every day, I carry about 600 kilos of goods in total.
I also have to have surgery on both hands, to receive prosthetic thumbs: by dint of tearing and tearing boxes for the shelves, I no longer have any articulation.
So, if I'm told that my retirement has been postponed, for a few months or a year, I won't be able to accept it.
The older we get, the more we see that the pace of work is hard to maintain.
It is much more difficult than twenty years ago to carry loads, even my knees are starting to give out.
Many young people are looking for work, and I think they should be trained to free people up and allow them to retire at 62.
I have never gone on strike or demonstrated in my life.
But if they ask me, I will do it, because here we are reaching a limit that is difficult to accept.
By dint of asking too much of people, the rope risks breaking, whether physically or psychically.
Many of my colleagues end up with cancer at 60
Jean, 29, mason in Valence
Reaching 60 in good health, when you are a mason, is already complicated, even with adapted workstations.
All day, we swallow oil, grease, cement, dust, everything that can exist in the building.
We use the hammer all the time, the body picks up.
Many of my colleagues end up with generalized cancers at 60.
And even if you escape it, from the age of 50, you have loose knees, or your back, carpal tunnel, ligaments...
Some of my colleagues are broken, they walk like a duck.
You have to help them all the time, they can't work normally anymore, they're screwed.
So if I have to continue until I'm 64… When I see them like that, I know I'm not going to stay in Masonry.
I will try to convert myself, and renovate apartments to rent them.
It's the only way not to work until death.
I have only been a mason for four years and I already see that this will not be tenable.
My back is already telling me that it doesn't agree, even though I'm not yet 30 years old.
My grandfather used to tell me: 'You shouldn't waste your life earning it.'
Joanna, 45, psychiatric nurse in Lurs
I'm not counting on my retirement, it's impossible for me to stay another 22 years as a nurse.
When I started, you could leave at 55 when you had three children, or otherwise at 57, but that changed a long time ago.
A psychiatric nurse is hard work.
It's a heavy mental load.
Concretely, you swallow all the misfortune in the world, you absorb very hard stories during the interviews.
I burned out last year.
I have a family of four children... I no longer want to dedicate myself solely to my work.
My grandfather used to tell me: "You shouldn't waste your life earning it".
I am thinking about consuming less and reducing my expenses to work less.
I don't know how long I'm going to last, but retirement is becoming something more and more abstract, I don't believe in it anymore… I already find that careers are too long, so if we add more years, it's is discouraging.
This will generate a feeling of resentment and injustice.
I won't be able to hold on
Sofiane*, 46, worker at Amazon in a large metropolis
*Name has been changed.
The reform, we were talking about it this morning with my colleagues.
Everyone is disgusted.
That depresses me.
I'm 46, and it's already hard now, so if I have another twenty years left… I get up at 3:30 am, load and unload packages for Amazon.
Every day, I process between 10 and 15 bins of parcels, each weighing 130 kilos.
It's very physical, and you also have to go very fast, so it's stressful.
When I finish my day, I have trouble walking, my back hurts, my joints hurt, my ankles hurt… So working like that at over 60 seems impossible to me.
I will not be able to hold on, I will have to find a more suitable job.
This reform is nonsense.
It's a job that wears out, and I want to stop before I'm too worn out
Bénédicte, 60 years old, carer for students with disabilities in kindergarten in Forcalquier
I was an educator of young children in a crèche for 25 years, and for the past five years, I have been accompanying students with disabilities.
I had a choppy career, with three children, a divorce… I already know that I will have a very small retirement, like many single women.
For the moment, I have to work until I am 64, and I don't know exactly what awaits me if the reform passes.
But I decided not to renew my contract.
I'd rather put myself out of work, live on what I have left in my savings or start training until I retire, because I can't take it anymore.
I don't want to work with children anymore.
I take care of a very difficult little boy, who went through hell when he was only four and a half years old.
I can no longer run after it, dispute it, take it back… It's a job that wears you out, and I want to stop before I get too worn out.
I consider that I did my part of the job, I gave everything I could give.
Now I'm a grandmother, I have three little girls and I want to take care of them.
At 62, a quarter of the poorest men are already dead.
I find it outrageous
Balthazar, 22, runner (room clerk) in catering in Paris
Retirement is very vague for me.
I find it hard to project myself that far, especially since I don't want to work in restaurants all my life - anyway, it's so physical that I couldn't do this job until I was 64.
I don't know if I'll still be alive at 60, if there will have been other reforms in the meantime, where we'll be on ecology… So I don't feel immediately concerned.
But I am absolutely against the reform.
The goal is to save money, to make the country produce more, by lowering business contributions and making people work longer.
It is on the poor that this will fall, especially since at 62, a quarter of the poorest men are already dead.
I find that outrageous.
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