Posted on 10/15/2010 6:01:52 AM PDT by GonzoII
smaller_textlarger_textprint_articleReuters, 15/10 14:30 CET
By Catherine Bremer
PARIS (Reuters) – French refinery workers cut off a fuel pipeline to Paris on Friday as protesters piled on pressure to derail President Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopular pension reform.
Police broke up blockades at fuel depots in southern France but protesters blocked a terminal at Paris’s Orly airport and truckers were set to join the fray as momentum built for a day of street rallies on Saturday.
A nationwide strike is planned on Tuesday, a day before the Senate is due to vote on a bill to make people work longer for their pensions.
The protests have become the biggest challenge facing the centre-right president, who is struggling with rock-bottom popularity ratings as he tries to appease financial markets by stemming a ballooning pension shortfall.
Turnout among striking rail workers dropped to 15 percent on Friday, from 40 percent earlier in the week, but union leaders hope to galvanise the public for next week’s action with the same force that saw a 1995 pension bill crushed by 24 days of protests. Next Tuesday’s strike could hit various sectors.
“This movement is deeply anchored in the country,” CGT union leader Bernard Thibault told LCI television.
“The government is betting on this movement deteriorating, even breaking down. I think we have the means to disappoint them.”
snip..
Polls show two-thirds of French people oppose Sarkozy’s plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60 and lift the age at which people can retire on a full pension to 67 from 65.
(Excerpt) Read more at euronews.net ...
You got my sympathy with the latter but not the former.
Coming soon to a City near you in the US.
Sarkozy should call out the Army.
retirement is a BS concept from 50 years ago.
everyone i know who is “rettred” spend all their time worrying about money and their health. more golf time doesnt make up for turning into a useless vegetable.
the happier people are still engaged and working, at something. 65 these days is like 45, 50 years ago. no retirement, work till you drop, you’ll be happier and healthier. and not a pain in the butt to your kids.
I'm not sympathetic in either regard. I've read that folks in western countries generally (including Japan) who reach 50 have an average life expectancy to 85+. Full retirement at 65 means 20+ years of retirement, as against typically around 40 - 43 years of working.
In a stable population, that works out to around .46 retirees per working-age person.
That makes it onerous for the folks still working to support those who are retired.
In the US, the age for full Social Security benefits for folks born in 1960 and later is 67. That changes the ratio modestly to around 18+ years of retirment against around 45 years of work. That reduces the ratio modestly to around .4 retirees per working-age person.
Frankly, I'd raise it to 70, giving around 15+ years of retirement against around 48 of work. That gets it down to around .31 or .32 retirees per working-age person, which is much less onerous on those who are still working.
sitetest
“Polls show two-thirds of French people oppose Sarkozy’s plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60 and lift the age at which people can retire on a full pension to 67 from 65.”
What kind of a fix answer do these two-thirds have then?
They’d probably go on strike ,too..........
I'd go on strike for that, I guess.
It is now said that "love", (read red-hot sex here) does indeed come close to being a cure-all for many age-related problems.
The more repressed, the shorter the life-span.
Health care reform should obviously include regularly scheduled orgies for one and all.
If you’ve ever wondered what makes a progressive smile...
it’s the great conundrum of the french:
they do everything wrong and it turns out right.
did you see the news story couple days ago that they are the most wealthy country now? just passed the US? here it is:
The highest level of average wealth doesn’t mean crap. In such a small country having a small number of very wealthy individuals raises the average pretty easily.
Also, they never had the terminal cancer that is slavery.
It sometimes seems that the US still has a HUGE slave population with the white slave-masters still alive and well in WASHINGTON DC.
We are already doing something similar for ss. My retirement has been pushed back a year or two according to SS.
These people are nuts. Without these changes there will be no system.
But I have waited for years to be a pain in the butt to my kids!
And who is going to hire all these old people? We have I don’t know how many recent college grads without jobs. There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. Maybe we should learn mandarin and move to China to find a job.
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