France on strike against Sarkozy’s pension reform program

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A one day strike across France protesting government plans to raise the retirement age drew thousands of workers. The protest of more than 200 demonstrations, planned since June, coincided with the walkout throughout the country this Tuesday. Unions and Federations called for workers to strike this Tuesday in reaction to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s planned reforms of raising the age of retirement from 60 to 62, though some may retire earlier in hard posts. Pension reform is one of Sarkozy’s important agenda of his presidency and he is facing tough challenges from stubborn unions and mulish members of the left-wing opposition who vowed to fight a bloody battlefield over this matter.

The strike crippled train services. Workers from the private and public sectors, justice, hospitals, media, banking, transportation and education answered the call though not everyone joined; only 30 percent of the education sector, stated by the Ministry of Education, went with the protest.

Many postal workers feel betrayed because they are being made to pay by working longer when the government could fix the increasing pension plan deficits by additional taxes on the rich. This was a statement issued by PTT Sud, a union involved with the strike.

However, a top aide of President Sarkozy said that the fundamentals of the pension reform must be enacted, while there is some flexibility on the details, the increasing life expectancy increases the financial obligation of the pension system. Clearly, this a real problem of the Sarkozy mandate unifying the opposition like no other issue before and may generate to something like the efforts of Alain Juppe’s plans of welfare system reform which was shot down and led to his downfall. Added is the plummeting approval rating of Sarkozy, hitting the lowest point over the summer.

Guillame Petit, of TNS Sofres said, “There is a kind of antipathy against Nicolas Sarkozy at the moment. His approval rating is very low. We have just 30 percent of French opinion trusting him as a president. That is very low for a president.”

[POSTMAN]

'They',grew a pair!

[fishtank]

'They',grew a pair!

"They" grew a real pair not a shrivelled up pair.
Imagine the French teaching us how to fight....how ironic is that?.....and how embarrassing?
And before the usual suspects arrive to tell us how much of a waste of time it is....i don't give a s**t,at least they're not bending over for it.

[clashcityrocker]

I lived in France for a while.
The level of political involvement was much higher there than it is here.
People demonstrated every week. Even if there was nothing to demonstrate about, hundreds of people would turn out.
I loved it.
And no-one watched Grand Frere.