President Emmanuel Macron aims to reform France’s pension system by the summer of 2023, he told French news outlets in his first extended interview since his re-election in April, Bloomberg News reported. The reform, which initially aimed to lift the retirement age from 62 to 65, is essential to financing Macron’s larger ambitions for his second five-year term. He discussed those plans in an interview with Le Parisien and regional French news outlets. Macron, who planned to reform the retirement system in 2020, had to postpone the change when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Russia failed to meet its obligations to creditors when it didn’t make a small interest payment in April, according to an industry body overseeing the derivatives market, a ruling that triggers some $2.2 billion in credit-default swaps, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Wednesday’s decision marks the first formal recognition within financial markets of a Russian debt default after its invasion of Ukraine caused the U.S. and its allies to impose broad financial sanctions, severing Moscow’s access to foreign bank accounts and global payment systems.

Lessor Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC) has emerged from Chapter 11 restructuring process, having eliminated nearly $4.1 billion of debt, Aerotime Hub reported. As part of its restructuring process, the lessor increased its liquidity with access to $537 million in additional capital to fund operations. In December 2021, NAC filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. In April 2022, NAC received approval for its restructuring plan from the Bankruptcy Court.

Euro-zone inflation is breaking record after record, but the gap between the highest and lowest rates among the currency bloc’s 19 members has also jumped to its widest ever, Bloomberg News reported. The scale ranges from Malta -- where consumer prices advanced 5.6% last month, to Estonia -- where inflation hit 20.1%. That’s a difference of more than 14 percentage points, more than at any time since the dawn of the euro in 1999.

Spain's jobless number dropped below 3 million in May for the first time since early in the 2008/09 global financial crisis, as the economy's recovery from the impact of COVID-19 boosted hirings and pushed many workers out of the shadow economy, Reuters reported. The number of people registering as jobless fell 3.29% from April, leaving 2.92 million people out of work, the lowest number since November 2008, Labour Ministry data showed on Thursday. Spain added 33,366 net jobs during the month, separate data from Social Security Ministry showed.

Inflation in the euro area in May hit its highest annual level since the creation of the euro currency in 1999, Europe’s statistics agency reported on Tuesday, as a record run-up in energy and food prices stoked by Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to ricochet through the continent’s economy, raising the specter of a lapse into recession, the New York Times reported. Annual inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency jumped to a record 8.1 percent in May, from 7.4 percent in April.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday he wants to join employers and labor unions in a “concerted action” to find ways of cushioning the effects of rising prices while preventing a spiral of inflation in Europe’s biggest economy, the Associated Press reported. Germany, like other countries in Europe and beyond, already has seen inflation accelerate sharply since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up fuel and food prices. An official estimate this week showed the country’s annual inflation rate jumping to 7.9% in May, the highest rate since the winter of 1973-1974.

Russia cut off gas supplies to more European buyers, stepping up its use of energy as a weapon and sowing further division in the continent, Bloomberg News reported. Gazprom PJSC halted pipeline shipments to the Netherlands and Denmark this week, and then surprised markets by also cutting off a small contract supplying Germany. Shell Plc and wind giant Orsted A/S refused to comply with President Vladimir Putin’s demand for payments to be made in rubles, and Gazprom responded by halting flows.

Stablecoins that are meant to be an alternative to traditional currencies aren’t steady enough for widespread use by consumers, a Bank of England official said, Bloomberg News reported. Andrew Hauser, executive director for markets at the UK central bank, said the digital currencies such as TerraUSD and Tether lack real-time information about their value and details about how they maintain convertibility. “Stable they are not,” Hauser said Wednesday in a text of remarks prepared for a panel hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

British sporting goods billionaire Mike Ashley swooped on another failing retailer, snapping up online brand Missguided after it entered UK insolvency proceedings, BusinessofFashion.com reported. Ashley’s Frasers Group Plc agreed to pay £20 million ($25 million) for the intellectual property of Missguided and related companies, according to a statement Wednesday. Missguided was founded in 2009 and sells clothes online to young women, targeting them via its 9.2 million Instagram followers.