Get ready for riots. Macron trying to increase pension age in France

[angus]

http://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/01/10/france-macron-to-push-for-pension-reform-again-despite-potential-strikes.html
A neccesary reform but the Fr*nch are sadly too dumb . Fortunately Macron is ignoring the will of the idiots .

Macron is serving his second term as France's president but overhauling the pension system is a long-standing promise that dates all the way back to when he was first elected in 2017.

France's legal retirement age is currently 62 — lower than many developed markets, including much of Europe and the U.S. The public sector also has "special regimes," or sector-specific deals that allow workers to retire before they're 62.

They have been talking about this reform for years.  Since at least 2017.  We'll see if it actually manifests.  It probably will.  It should be noted that the French president has more executive authority than many others, including the US president.  Before presidential terms were cut from seven years to five, some political analysts likened the French presidency to the absolute monarchy of the ancien régime.  He appoints the prime minister and members of the constitutional council.  He can dissolve the national assembly.  He can submit bills directly to referenda.  He can even bypass the national assembly on certain matters described in article 11 of the constitution of the fifth republic.  I'd imagine that he can find a way to enact pension reform.  I suspect the reason he didn't do it in his first mandate was because he want to be re-elected.  Now that he has been, there's no reason not to.  

Where the French pension system differs from most others is that it is convoluted by exceptions, requirements for number of years worked, and the fact that it has 42 separate plans, which results in its requiring 14% of the national GDP to sustain it.  They should also use this moment to simplify all that, but from all that I have read it seems that Elisabeth Borne's plans are no less convoluted than the old system.  

The other thing to keep in mind is that according to the French government, the pension system is not in dire financial straits.  They actually produced surpluses in 2021 and 2022, but it also estimates deficits of about 10 billion euro per year from 2023 to 2034 (without reform).  The options are raising the age, reducing the benefits, raising taxes, means testing (which they already do), or just letting the debts pile up (which probably runs afoul of European Union regulations).  Raising the age is probably the best option.  That, along with importing younger workers from North Africa and other places.  Or make more babies.

The smart move would have been to have Elisabeth Borne speak publicly about raising the lower age limit from 62 to 65 or 66.  CFDT and other organizations call on their members to mobilize.  The government comes in and sits down to the table with the union bosses and they agree to raise it only to 64, which makes for a neat compromise.  She sort of did that, but it wasn'tt efficiently orchestrated.  Remember that Macron is getting pushback from the right as well.  Many capitalists and business leaders are concerned about the proposal to raise benefits.  He has Les Républicains (mostly) on board, but they only occupy 148 seats in the legislature, so Macron will want to grease some of the rightist and leftist members if he wants to avoid resorting to article 49.3 again. (It was after all Eric Ciotti, head of LR, who convinced Borne to back off the original plan of raising the age to 65.  Trop sévère, he called it.)  The center-right and the far right parties generally support the reform for budgetary reasons, but the devil is in the details.

[angus]

Get ready for riots. Macron trying to increase pension age in France

Well, not quite a riot, but a manifestation.

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2023/01/15/reforme-des-retraites-ces-quinquagenaires-qui-n-arrivent-pas-a-s-imaginer-travailler-jusqu-a-64-ans_6157918_823448.html

Note that quinquagénaires means fifty-somethings, more or less.  The line about "L’exécutif, qui envisageait un report à 65 ans pour sa réforme-phare, a donc mis de l’eau dans son vin." says that the executive wanted to increase the retirement age to 65, but ended up putting "water in his wine".  I suppose that's an idiomatic French way of saying that he toned it down a little (changing it to 64, which is exactly the way I would have done it [vide supra] were I in charge.)

I think they'll just have to learn to drink that wine.  Even Porthos, in Les Trois Mousquetaires, learned to handle the watered-down Margot offered him by the husband of a pretty woman he was trying to seduce, though he was clearly disgusted by the stinginess of the husband of that woman.

Le Monde is calling for responses.  It's a bit sensationalistic, but it does show that workers are not happy about the situation.  The second person interviewed says that we will "passer du boulot à l'EPHAD."  (go straight from working to the retirement home)  I think that is the key.  There has been a growing expectation (in France, but the US and other countries as well) that one should have a long period between leaving one's work and being on the deathbed.  That, I think, underscores the problem.  We are not cavemen who need to fight against sabertooth cats every waking moment, but we are not yet interstellar explorers with an economy and a technology so advanced that we can speak "tea, earl grey, hot" into the food replicator and expect it to deliver.  Growing pains.  For all of us.  

[angus]

French unions represent less of the population percentage wise than their American counterparts.

They're both pretty low compared to other OECD member states.  In the US union density has declined from about 36% of the workforce in the mid-1950s to about 10.2% today.  In France it has declined from about 25% to about 8.8% in that same time frame.  Other countries have seen declines in union membership as well, but not as much.



The difference between France and other countries, even though they have a lower union density, is that they have cohesive forces built into law.  (look up Le dialogue sociale.)  Also, the French unions have had consistent support from the general public.  Between 60 and 70% of the public have positive views of them in polls over the past few decades.  In the US, support for unions fell from about 75% in the mid-1950s to about 48% in 2009.  Some of that was probably a result of the Great Recession.  However, there has been a steady uptick since then.  For example, Gallup reports a consistent rise in the approval ratings of unions in the US over the past decade:



By the way, are we still allowed to post images if the source is clearly cited?  

[angus]

u r supposed to live to the ripe old age of died of a heart attack at ur desk, thats the way life is. always has been always will be.

You should read The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope.  It is set in a fictional place called Britannula.  They found a perfect solution to the problem of cranky old people giving advice, repeating themselves, complaining about rheumatism, receiving government funds without contribution, trying to help, getting in the way, and making younger people feel guilty.  At the age of 67, a citizen's "deposition" would take place.  The deposition consisted of their removal to "The College", an institution situated in the town of Necropolis, where they would be encouraged to enjoy a year of contemplation.  This was followed exactly one year later, at the age of 68, by their "departure" (a peaceful euthanasia following inhalation of chloroform) and subsequent cremation.

[angus]

bien dit, Sir John Johns.

But really, although there's no crisis now, the government of France estimates that there will be a huge deficit by 2027, so the choices are:  reduce the benefit (no one wants that), means testing (which to some degree they already do), operate at a huge deficit indefinitely (ça ne marche pas; it runs afoul of european union regulations), or raise the retirement age.  The latter seems like the most sensible approach.

[angus]

un compromis, peut-être ?

For those who do not read French, or who prefer not to read French, this article says that Elisabeth Borne announced that people having begun working at the age of 20 or 21 can seek full retirement at 63 instead of 64 years of age.  What is particularly interesting is that the article emphasizes that she is listening to the demands of the right.  I guess it makes sense because the votes of the legislators from Les Républicains are essential to pass this reform.

The article also states that Borne estimates that the compromise will cost at least 600 million euro per year, relative to the original proposed legislation, and that they will need to find a way to finance it.  Her attitude seems to be one of "You have spoken; we have listened."

We'll see if the workers are off the streets and back at work on Monday morning. 

[angus]

This contretemps is meaningless to me without context,

I'm not sure that the context you provided is the right context.  The other countries are not likely to be important to the average French worker.  What if all the gas stations raised the price of fuel to $7 per gallon, and justified it on the basis that the average price is $7 per gallon in the OECD countries?  US consumers would be very upset.  Similarly, what Germans or Danes do is not going to be sufficient justification for the French.  

The French seem to have a different mindset than the anglophones regarding the worker's strike. They love their strike.  They don't even call it a strike (which is odd, because they use their word for strike, coup, for a million other things)  They say "faire la grève" (make the gravel; technically gravier is gravel but they are etymologically related).  According to Projet Voltaire, people arrived in boats with their wares and sold them on the quai of the Place de Grève (Gravel Plaza), so called because it was not paved, but covered in sand and gravel.  People started to say "faire grève" to mean set up shop.  Eventually, with time, the phrase came to mean collective cessation of work in order to complain.

Here is better context for you.  This chart shows the number of workdays lost per 1000 workers per year, by country.  Note that the happy Danes are not quite as happy as they think they are.  Canada is odd among anglophone countries, but remember that about 23% of the population of that country is native francophone, and that about 40% of the Belgian population is native francophone as well:



Albert Camus famously said "la dignité humaine consiste en la recherche permanente de l'amélioration de sa condition" (roughly, "human dignity consists of the permanent search of the improvement of one's condition").  I think the French have had this idea for several centuries with sporadic intense outbreaks of action (e.g., 1789) and it helps to explain countless social movements in their history.  

They genuinely believe that a lower government-specified retirement age is an improvement.  It may be.  It may not be.  I was speaking to a colleague a few years ago who has since retired.  My colleagues retire anywhere between the ages of 57 and 81.  My "nominal" retirement age by policy is 60 but that is a meaningless number.  I'll work as long as I'm healthy and I'm still enjoying it.  After all, taking home six figures every year is better than five, which is normally the adjustment one has to make when one retires.  It's probably a very gringo attitude.  At least not very French.  Look at Joe Biden.  You can't drag him away from his work.  Anyway, back to the point:  age discrimination is illegal, technically, but it happens.  No one can legally force us to retire but they do pressure us.  So my colleague was telling me, "There will come a day, probably when you are around 62, that people will start asking, 'So, angus, when are you going to retire' and you will be able to tell that what they are really saying is 'You old fart, when are you going to step down and let some younger guy with more recent training and fresh ideas have your job?  Because he'll surely be able to do it better' and that's when you will start to seriously think about retirement."

But bear in mind that he and I are both from the US.  Were we French we'd start seriously thinking about retirement at about the age of 21.  (Look at the faces of many of the grèvistes in the photos of the news articles.)

[angus]

So Angus, the tl:dr is that there is something about the French language (the French look far too diverse for me to believe it is genetic - Normandy v. Marseilles), that causes people to sit on their ass and malinger, the better to  have more time to shop with other people's money at impromptu port markets where presumably the food fresh off the ship is the most savory. Got it. Thanks.

Smartass.  

Not quite, but indeed language does affect us.  Japanese has 50 words for rain.  Danish has about 100 for snow/ice.  They need them. 

Consider this example:  English has many words for trash receptacle.  Rubbish bin, garbage can, trashcan, wastebin, dustbin, refuse bin, etc.  The French have one:  La Poubelle.  And they didn't have that one till around 1884.  (okay, to be fair they also have la boîte à ordures)  What conclusion could we draw from that?  I'll let you draw your own.

On the other hand, the French have about 10 common ways to say "let's get a drink".  Far more than English. 

[angus]

https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/french-people-do-not-like-to-shower-survey-shows

My favorite part of the confinement!  Not much good came from the coronavirus, but that was one thing I liked.  I sometimes went for weeks without showering, shaving, or wearing pants.  Lovin' it.

[angus]

I talked to a woman from Paris this morning on a Zoom call.  She has no car and relies on public transit.  She said that there have been days without métro service, or with severe disruptions, but her employers have been understanding so far.  She is really dreading March 7, when a renewable strike will begin.  Well, they are calling for "une grève reconductible" which I suppose means that it could last for a while.  

[angus]

Things seem to be calming down a bit.  Or at least there are fewer strikers, according to this article, but it also says that those who remain are more determined than ever.

On January 19, there were 2.5 million French workers on the streets according to the unions, 963 thousand according to the police.  

Today there were 1.3 million according to the unions and 440 thousand according to the police.

Also, there 26 arrests of strikers today, one for "exhibition sexuelle".  I couldn't find any details explaining what that meant, although I can envision a few possible interpretations.  If anyone learns, post it here because I'm mighty curious.

Edit:  Nevermind.  I found the following description in another newspaper - "Un homme se serait masturbé dans une rame du RER E sous le regard des autres passagers."

♪ If I had a chance I'd ask the world to dance and not be dancing with myself...

[angus]

Sir John Johns, that post has an impressive length.  I have only just noticed it and I haven't the time to read it all now, but I see a couple of question marks that I can easily address:

We call it a boneplate in my house, although I cannot vouch for other anglophones.  Primarily it is for bones, but we also use it for the shells of sunflower seeds, spent paper napkins, the crunchy parts of crabs and shrimps, etc.  Occasionally we also call it a hamtub.  It gets emptied into what I call the "garbage can" and washed immediately after dinner.  

Regarding terroir, as in "ensemble des terres d'une région, considérées du point de vue de leurs aptitudes agricoles et fournissant un ou plusieurs produits caractéristiques", we generally call that a region in English.  But serious oenophiles call it a terroir.  I can go either way.

It may be the case that some people put their rubbish on the floor.  I doubt that it is a common practice because I have not seen it (except by patrons in Texas Roadhouse restaurants and some fraternity houses where it is a time-honored tradition.)