What’s Behind the French Riots?
When the French body politic is sick, the observable symptom is usually a riot. Demonstrations are so much a part of life in Paris that disruption in bus service by manifestation is programmed into the electronic display signs at bus stops. So what diagnosis can one make from the current bout of demonstrations and riots? Are these riots a sign of a passing sniffle, or an attack of profound ill health?
The explicit catalyst for the turmoil is the retirement-reform law proposed by President Emmanuel Macron and his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne. There are nuances of this law, such as increasing the pensions for the lowest wage earners, that most people don’t really know about. I asked my French wife, an informed journalist, if she knew the details of the reform law. She did not. The essence that people take as the reform is that the retirement age will be increased from age 62 to 64. I found this quote from Marine Le Pen, the leader of one of the opposition parties (more below), at the website of the mainstream newspaper Le Monde: “Emmanuel Macron will now try ... to bring retirement to 64 years old. The French can count on all our determination to block this unjust reform.”
From the government’s point of view, this is a moderate and necessary reform. After all, the thinking goes, people are living longer. The French national debt is rising, especially after the Covid-era spending spree. Something needs to be done to put public finances in order. Certainly, from an American perspective, this appears to be a moderate proposal. For example, I spent 16 years working in France for a French corporation. I retired last year, in my American sense “early,” at age 64.
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