[jorvi]

> In France cars are torched if the pension age is raised.

This is not something to be proud of. You guys are giving yourself loaned freebies, retiring 5+ (!) years earlier than countries like BeNeLux and Germany, and are pretty much expecting the EU to eventually pick up the pieces which will drag us all down.

Edit: always lovely when HN downvotes truths :)

[the_gipsy]

That's bullshit. Pensions are not a zero-sum game, and other countries don't have to pay for them.

It just doesn't make sense to delay retirement while youth unemployment is such a big problem. We ALL should be fighting like France, in many aspects.

[jorvi]

Other countries don't directly pay for the pensions, but France is staring into a giant fiscal abyss because of their low retirement age (and other generous social benefits). Any attempt to change those results in the country being taken hostage by rioters, thus nothing changes.

At some point France will be in too deep shit and will look to the EU to cover for them. We will all pay for that. And it is deeply unfair because other countries their citizens have accepted later retirement and more frugal benefits to keep their countries fiscally healthy.

France could cover the fiscal hole in other ways, but taxing corporations and wealth at a higher rate also consistently ends up being blocked. And each year the hole gets deeper.

[snakeboy]

> Any attempt to change those results in the country being taken hostage by rioters, thus nothing changes.

Your theory doesn't actually match with reality, given that Macron's retirement reform was passed into law despite protests. As currently enacted, the age of retirement in France will progressively increase from 62 until reaching 64 in 2030.

[jorvi]

It does match reality.

Reform wasn't passed, it was forced via a technicality after riots made it politically unpalatable, and it has put France in a governing crisis ever since.

Also, retirement in North, West and Central EU is 67+, not 64. Greece is at 67 too, although begrudgingly.

Again, I'd be equally happy if France covers the fiscal hole some other way, but I am not going to cover for a country that is willingly becoming the sick man of Europe because they want to live comfortably on borrowed time. Which, by the way, is a literal repeat of Greece its crisis. Time is a flat circle indeed.

[snakeboy]

> Reform wasn't passed, it was forced via a technicality after riots made it politically unpalatable, and it has put France in a governing crisis ever since.

You can call it a technicality if you'd like, but, the article 49.3 mechanism is a legitimate tool for the government under the French constitution. It is arguably designed to allow the government to pass pragmatic, but politically unpalatable projects like retirement reforms.

As for the governing crisis, it is simply a matter of Macron having used up the rest of his political capital on this reform, and he will conclude his term next year.

You are giving the impression that France is some kind of failed state unable to correct its course, where in actuality, the democratic process literally worked as intended:

  1. Macron proposes a necessary welfare reform to start reigning in the budget
  2. People go out and protest (unsurprising, as welfare cuts are universally unpopular)
  3. Macron's government uses an unpopular mechanism to pass the reform into law, which contributes to his government becoming a lame duck.

> Also, retirement in North, West and Central EU is 67+, not 64.

This is simply moving the goalposts of our discussion, so I will not respond. France's reforms under Macron are real, and directionally-correct.

[FrojoS]

It’s not bs. France is lobbying for “Eurobonds”, debt they can take at German interest rates and with Germans etc holding the bag, for about two decades now.

https://youtu.be/tMd7EfFsPIc (Video claims France is against them, but if they ever were they are not anymore)