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Post by jackie on Mar 20, 2023 10:05:25 GMT 1
Oh Houpla. You complain, quite rightly, of being robbed of your pension. So was I. And then you advocate doing the same to others. Not at all! I feel that successive Presidents have given fair warning that change would have to happen, even if they subsequently bottled out of implementing it. 64 isn't excessively old, although it might seem it to a 20 year-old  What's causing all this fuss is more about the French mindset....as a nation they are inculcated from birth with the idea that work is something tiresome that interrupts weekends and holidays. I'm not saying that attitude is wrong (or right). In the long term, if schools and parents encouraged children to enjoy learning and careers guidance was improved to encourage the novel idea that you could get fulfillment from your job, they'd all be happier as a nation? Perhaps not  The question of whether people doing hard, physical jobs are able to continue into their mid 60s is something else all together. If there was a way of staggering retirement by reducing the hours worked, perhaps by job-sharing with a youngster, that would be a good thing both physically and psychologically. I actually admire and agree with the French mindset, work to live not live to work. Yes some may have fulfilling careers but a lot of people are stuck in mindless repetitive work and these jobs need doing so who is going to do them if the ‘novel’ idea of getting more fulfilling work becomes the norm? I would hate to see France join the US and the UK in the kind of ruthless Capitalism that treats workers as just tools to make as much profit as possible and expected to work until they drop. |
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Post by mangetout on Mar 20, 2023 10:10:09 GMT 1
Were you so sage in your teens and early twenties? Or just idealistic like many of us were and with not a brain cell of experience to back up our idealism. Quite a legitimate question. When I look back at my young life, I realise that I just accepted what went on around me as normal and outside of my control. Then I got caught up in the corporate world and got carried along by greed. Owning things was everything. Bigger house, newer car, expensive holidays etc. Bugger everyone else, I was alright Jack. In my early 40s, after experiencing life and developing the ability, and interest, to look around me I started to have ideas of my own. That's if anyone's ideas are ever their own. And you? |
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Post by lindalovely on Mar 20, 2023 10:42:42 GMT 1
My French teacher has been protesting. Not in Paris or Bordeaux because of all the casseurs, but in the local manifestations. Her view, which is broadly similar to mine, is that the pension system as it stands needs reform, because it is unfair (Many people who haven't got full contributions have to wait until they are 67 to retire even now, and the pensions they get are incredibly low even then, and there has never been a system of top up pensions as there has been in the UK). It is the details of the reforms that don't do much to even out the inequalities, and Macron's heavy handiness when he is essentially heading a minority government. That action could well bring down the government and cause far more chaos than modifying the pensions plan would.
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Post by rabbit on Mar 20, 2023 11:10:14 GMT 1
I can accept that people have a right to strike. What I can’t accept is the right to disrupt the lives of the innocent public.
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Nifty
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Post by Nifty on Mar 20, 2023 11:12:14 GMT 1
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exile
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Massif Central
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Post by exile on Mar 20, 2023 11:48:21 GMT 1
I can accept that people have a right to strike. What I can’t accept is the right to disrupt the lives of the innocent public. What is the point of a strike if no one is impacted? If you could do it, how would it influence thise you are trying to change? |
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Post by norfolk on Mar 20, 2023 12:42:09 GMT 1
I can accept that people have a right to strike. What I can’t accept is the right to disrupt the lives of the innocent public. What is the point of a strike if no one is impacted? If you could do it, how would it influence thise you are trying to change? Ironically the last people to be affected or impacted are the politicians. |
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Nifty
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Post by Nifty on Mar 20, 2023 12:42:45 GMT 1
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Post by mangetout on Mar 20, 2023 13:18:43 GMT 1
What is the point of a strike if no one is impacted? If you could do it, how would it influence thise you are trying to change? Ironically the last people to be affected or impacted are the politicians. Nothing is more precious than life, and I'd say the politicians are pretty frightened right now. |
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Post by rabbit on Mar 21, 2023 11:24:39 GMT 1
I can accept that people have a right to strike. What I can’t accept is the right to disrupt the lives of the innocent public. What is the point of a strike if no one is impacted? If you could do it, how would it influence thise you are trying to change? I didn’t say nobody should be impacted |
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exile
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Massif Central
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Post by exile on Mar 21, 2023 11:44:23 GMT 1
What is the point of a strike if no one is impacted? If you could do it, how would it influence thise you are trying to change? I didn’t say nobody should be impacted So come on then, how do impact some but ensure it's none of the "innocent public" and have anything that is effective? |
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Post by rabbit on Mar 21, 2023 16:46:07 GMT 1
An example is blocking an Autoroute so that people with cancer can’t get to the hospital and a single mother is unable to pick up her child and so much frustration for innocent people. Yet the action will have zero impact on the dispute.
Ditto stopping fuel deliveries. So many innocent people impacted.
It would have more impact if the employers or the politicians were inconvenienced directly - but peacefully
Around here some casseurs blocked the expressway and set fire to a pile of tyres. Result expressway was closed for 6 weeks and the repairs cost us tax payers 300k€
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Post by pcpa on Mar 21, 2023 18:40:15 GMT 1
Checklist for manifestation.
Pneus.
Allumettes.
Feu d'artifice.
Barbecue.
Muerguez.
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Nifty
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Post by Nifty on Mar 22, 2023 15:04:26 GMT 1
An example is blocking an Autoroute so that people with cancer can’t get to the hospital and a single mother is unable to pick up her child and so much frustration for innocent people. Yet the action will have zero impact on the dispute. Ditto stopping fuel deliveries. So many innocent people impacted. It would have more impact if the employers or the politicians were inconvenienced directly - but peacefully Around here some casseurs blocked the expressway and set fire to a pile of tyres. Result expressway was closed for 6 weeks and the repairs cost us tax payers 300k€ Not that I am pro the destruction of Public property but I a am sure that taxi and ambulance drivers are well aware of alternate routes. Historically, talking with politicians and employers is edited by the media and sidracked. since the invention of the web this has become endemic among all groups with a particular point of view. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/what-iffery |
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Post by mangetout on Mar 22, 2023 15:29:12 GMT 1
An example is blocking an Autoroute so that people with cancer can’t get to the hospital and a single mother is unable to pick up her child and so much frustration for innocent people. Yet the action will have zero impact on the dispute. Ditto stopping fuel deliveries. So many innocent people impacted. It would have more impact if the employers or the politicians were inconvenienced directly - but peacefully Around here some casseurs blocked the expressway and set fire to a pile of tyres. Result expressway was closed for 6 weeks and the repairs cost us tax payers 300k€ My husband was undergoing cancer treatment during the GJ action and we found that the taxi drivers were well aware of planned route blockages and worked round them. On the odd occasion it wasn't possible, we were let through. My husband, who can no longer speak for himself, always backed their right to protest. And if he had been alive today he would back them again. |
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What's causing all this fuss is more about the French mindset....as a nation they are inculcated from birth with the idea that work is something tiresome that interrupts weekends and holidays. I'm not saying that attitude is wrong (or right). In the long term, if schools and parents encouraged children to enjoy learning and careers guidance was improved to encourage the novel idea that you could get fulfillment from your job, they'd all be happier as a nation? Perhaps not 
The question of whether people doing hard, physical jobs are able to continue into their mid 60s is something else all together. If there was a way of staggering retirement by reducing the hours worked, perhaps by job-sharing with a youngster, that would be a good thing both physically and psychologically.
