vive le france
We’ve all heard the one about France being a great country apart from the fact that it’s full of the French but I like the French for one reason, and one reason alone. They love a good dispute and haven’t lost the ability to get off their Gallic backsides, march purposely down the closest rue and shake their fists at the powers that be.
Viewed from across le manche, their current fury over the proposed pension reform is a little hard to get a grip on. They face the same economic crisis as all of us do and the same tightening of the belt is going to be necessary. But everything we accept with indifferent resignation and a shrug of the shoulder sends then into a apoplectic rage of unfathomable ferocity. Proposed plans to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 and the age for receiving the full state pension to 67 have brought more than three million onto the streets, accompanied by the obligatory strikes and lootings. But get this, I saw three individuals being interviewed (a rail passenger who’s train had been cancelled and had no way of getting home that night, a flier who had slept the night on the floor at Charles de Gaul airport and a car driver who had queued for hours only for the petrol to run out when it was his turn to fill up!) all said it was a pain but it was something they HAD to endure as the dispute was for the good of all within society and as such they were fully supportive of the industrial action.
Can you imagine what our reaction would have been in their position? Hanging would have been to good for them. We’d have wanted their first born burnt at the stake! The audacity of someone interfering with our holiday plans; preventing us filling up with the motion lotion necessary for us to get to Blue Water via maccie-d’s and KFC; disrupting the power supply during Strictly or X-Factor; and what exactly do you think that burning brazier is going to do the environment?
Even though I admire them for this public show of support and social cohesion, they will undoubtedly be ratified and passed by an already deeply unpopular Sarkozy because they are necessary, and in reality they’ll need to go further and deeper. That’s the hard and fast about it but will it actually affect anyone? Consider this: of the 600,000 who retire each year almost half (40%+) will still receive exceptional treatment and receive full and complete benefits on such grounds as hardship, disability or, incredibly, being the mother of three children. I kid you not. Brilliant! Where else in the world could rules be set that allows almost half of the population to ignore them?
Liberte, egalite, fraternite!
