Blocking the Louvre will not defuse pension issue

Demographic denial is on the rise as the European continent turns greyer

- Lionel Laurent

The French word of the month is "chienlit", a centuries-old term literally meaning to soil the bed; it is used today to describe the havoc on the streets. Famously deployed in the days of Charles de Gaulle during the 1968 student riots, it is back in fashion after 10 days of strikes triggered by President Emmanuel Macron's hike in the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62.

The expression is French, as are the recent images of uncollected garbage being set on fire and clashes against riot police, but the root problem goes beyond France.

We are in the grip of what economists Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan in 2020 dubbed The Great Demographic Reversal: An end to several decades of benign economic trends in inflation, interest rates and inequality. Worryingly, while climate denialism is being rolled back, demographic denialism is on the rise.