A "privilege" for Europeans is something left over from the feudal past. For example, here are the meanings (in reverse translation into Russian) given by Makarov's Russian-French dictionary of a hundred years ago, which serves as the basis for all modern Russian-French and French-Russian dictionaries: inviolability, exemption from taxes, and even a franchise. You can try experimenting with other languages - the result will not change.
Does this mean that Europeans do not have privileges in our understanding? No, but they have long moved into another category of social and legal concepts. They ceased to be something that is graciously granted, and turned into a subject of law and labor relations.
Here we need to clearly understand some realities - both historical and modern. First, European countries are rich, they have worked long and hard there, so they can afford a lot. Therefore, for example, a pensioner can be considered privileged: the average citizen can live well on a European pension, not work, travel the world, spoil grandchildren, and so on. Second, this situation did not arise suddenly, but became the result not just of the goodwill of some government, but the fruit of often long social, labor, and political conflicts and crises. Third, Europe owes much of its social well-being to... the Soviet Union, whose very existence for many decades forced the rulers of European countries to ensure social peace at home, so that the revolutionary example would not infect their societies.
As a result, what is now commonly called the European social model or social market economy took shape. With many national characteristics making social Sweden unlike Spain, and Ireland unlike Luxembourg, this model has one common feature: it is convenient for a person placed at the center of the entire structure. Is it by chance that people from all over the world are drawn to Europe to find work, and if lucky, to live on child benefits in a way they could not even dream of in their distant homeland? But immigration is a completely different topic.
Very many categories of citizens in Europe enjoy all sorts of social advantages. Take a French pensioner. He has a good pension, but also a whole bunch of other things. For example, with a special card he buys tickets for transport, cinema, theaters, and museums at big discounts. As for medicines and medical care (paid) in France, it is in fact practically... free. For everyone, not only the elderly, and not only for the French. The social security system takes care of this. The corresponding fund is created from contributions by employers (the larger part) and by workers themselves. Suppose you need to fill a tooth. A person who is part of the social security system (almost all people permanently residing in France are in it) goes to his doctor, gets a filling, pays at the rate (the doctor does not set the amount, it is determined by a national agreement), takes the relevant document, brings it to his social security office, and soon the money is returned to him.
There is also a clear scale for reimbursement. For some types of treatment that are vitally necessary, the amount is fully reimbursed; for others, only a certain part; and still others are done at one's own expense. For a tooth filling, everything will be returned. For dental prosthetics - depending on what exactly was done to the patient. The base price will be returned, but if some particularly fancy prosthetics were installed, the patient will have to pay the difference. Well, for plastic surgery or electrolysis, no one will return anything.
The result is full accessibility of top-level medicine for the entire population of France without exception, not only for its wealthy part. Therefore, an Algerian janitor from the provinces can, if necessary, have any operation, no matter how much it costs. Of course, not in a luxury private clinic, but in an ordinary, say, university hospital. But it is the university hospitals, not private ones, that have the reputation of being the very best...
A similar system operates in the case of medicines. Depending on the type and purpose of the drug, social security returns the full or partial cost, but for pharmaceutical indulgence you will have to pay yourself.
One could endlessly list who has a right to what in France. I, for example, was always pleased by how French society and the state favored journalists, and not only their own but also foreign ones, to which category I belonged when I was a correspondent in Paris. It is hardly possible to say that reporters are very loved there, but they are always treated with due respect. For example, French colleagues (in France a very nice term is used - 'brethren') have tax advantages. They deduct from the taxable base the amounts they spend on representation purposes. Indeed: this money is spent not for one's own pleasure (though that too), but for work. I did not have to pay French taxes, so I happily abused free visits to museums - all state ones and most private ones. Show a journalist card - and you pass. And free copies of new books in publishing houses, tickets to the most inaccessible premieres, and much more... It is supposed! But the scale is the goodwill of the press services of publishers, theaters, and the like. Everyone knows: it is better to always have journalists on your side...
It cannot be said that the extensive system of social advantages pleases the highest spheres of the country. It is not by chance that it is believed that the French system of labor and social relations in general is quite strictly regulated, and this leads to too high production costs and a decrease in competitiveness. Constant efforts are made to eliminate one or another social advantage. Then France takes to the streets in demonstrations, sometimes goes on strike. The results of such actions vary, up to a complete refusal of certain unpopular reforms.
Admittedly, this system is increasingly becoming a luxury even for rich France. There are several reasons, but the main one is demographic. The population is aging, there are fewer and fewer working people, which means fewer people paying contributions to social and other funds. Thus, the social security system has had a deficit with a huge number of zeros for more than a decade and is covered by loans. To improve the financial condition of social security, the authorities are trying to somehow rationalize the compensation system. This is not particularly successful, but to the credit of the French state, these reforms are never planned at the expense of abolishing, for example, in healthcare, practically free medicine in the part that matters for human life.
One must not forget such a psychologically and politically very important factor: the restraining role of the Soviet Union is no more, and looking back at it, European governments preferred, for the sake of internal peace, not to touch social privileges.
And yet... A wave of inevitable revision of many elements of the welfare state is rolling over European countries. In Germany, under pressure of financial and economic necessity, the social-democratic government is forced, at the cost of losing popularity, to undertake painful labor market reforms. In Italy, the pension system is being reformed, which brings huge demonstrations of protesting pensioners to the streets, and not only them: all working people are future pensioners. This wave does not bypass France and other EU countries, promising socially difficult times in the coming years.
But in all statements and documents - both national and at the EU level - a principle is proclaimed: to preserve the European social model and even try to export it. After all, it is this model, combined with enormous labor and a reasonable management system, that guarantees Europeans their current prosperity and internal peace. Let us not forget that the idea underlying the EU is the prevention of conflicts. At the beginning of the journey, the founding fathers thought about how to make a new war between Germany and France impossible, and then this philosophy of peaceful life spread to other spheres.