November 2007 strikes in France retire with full pension benefits after 37.5 years rather than 40 years. The Sarkozy administration claims the current pension system allows some public sector workers to retire as early as age 50. The government calculated the cost of these early-retirement benefits at $7 billion a year. President Nicolas Sarkozy felt that his victory in the 2007 presidential election gave him a mandate to carry out labour reforms, stating "I said before I was elected what I would do," and "we will do these reforms because they have to be done." He declared the strikes a test of political will. "I
Jacques Chirac's second term as President of France various fraudulent schemes he has been named in. While he is currently immune from prosecution as a president, prescription (i.e. the statute of limitations) does not apply. His authority was seriously weakened by the October–November 2005 Paris suburb riots in which hundreds of cars and numerous warehouses were set alight throughout France by thousands of alienated North African immigrants who complain of widespread discrimination and unemployment. The riots were triggered by the accidental deaths of two North African immigrants in a poor Paris suburb named Clichy-sous-Bois who were rumoured to be fleeing from police. Chirac later acknowledged that France had