France's Coddled Citizens Protest The Pending Raise In Retirement Age

The French people are still at it with their protests against the pending change in retirement age, and those protests are getting nasty with demonstrations and a fuel strike in retaliation, and could get uglier. This is what happens when a nanny state decides to no longer coddle its citizens. France currently has one of the lowest retirement ages in the world with early retirement set at age 60. Now France wants to raise it to 62 (like in the U.S.), and the French have gone berserk. They also want to raise the normal retirement age (whereby they would receive a full pension) from 65 to 67. In the U.S. full retirement age ranges from 65 to 67 depending on one's birth year. The normal retirement age seems a little high, particularly for men in some blue collar labour jobs, but 60 is way too young for early retirement.

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So it seems both young and old have taken to the streets across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of people were joining rallies in 230 French cities to protest government plans to raise the retirement age.

The nationwide protest kicked off in the southern city of Toulouse, where large crowds of protesters marched through the city center waving banners and chanting slogans critical of President Nicholas Sarkozy.

The unpopular pension reform includes a rise in the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 by 2018. Under the bill, which has already passed the National Assembly and is scheduled to be voted on in the Senate on October 13, pensioners will receive a full pension at 67 instead of 65.

I do understand that the French income taxes are inordinately high and so they feel entitled to reap some of the benefits from that taxation, but a country that has a 35 hour work week (the U.S. is 40) and a mandated 30 days holiday per year (the U.S. does not guarantee anyone vacation time, or sick leave though normally businesses will provide both at their discretion)needs to reassess some of its priorities.

Who knows how this will all resolve itself, since the country seems determined to make those changes in spite of the protests; but government officials are concerned that since high-school students are now joining the throngs, the potential for the demonstrations to escalate to violence is very possible.

Looks like France might soon become like the rest of us.