They were fully prepared to turn the working populace into slave labor and then the government was shocked to see that descision was unpopular.
One thing that catches my eye about this article is that the Guardian specifies “young people” as the cause for the pushback, Gen Z and Millennials, as if everyone else would be perfectly fine working until they fucking die. Just more “Zoomers bad” rhetoric.
Btw since i wrote that comment the Euro way just changed too, Macron said “fuck you” and forced that as a decreee by his totally democratic dictatorial power.