Are the French revolutionaries? Are the French always dissatisfied? This is the popular perception of the French people that we obtain from the news and from the media; the French are always doing something to express their unhappiness and not working instead. Although we rarely hear of strikes and demonstrations back in good ole Netherlands, that does not imply that they do not exist!
The cause of the last and the upcoming strike planned for the 23rd September was due to Sakorzy's idea of raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 in an effort to curb the bugetary deficit and the growing national debt amongst a range of other measures including possible tax hikes. Critics and the common folk alike have labeled this increase in retirement age 'unfair'. Popular arguments include:
1. 'People at the age of 60 are going to be laid off anyway, and that creates unemployment.'
2. 'This is an unjust burden on SMEs.'
3. 'What will happen to people who are already in the late 50s? This is not fair for them!'
As a economist-in-training in Sciences Po, a school for political science (they simply cannot co-exist huh?!), there are definitely economic arguments (which the ruling incumbents used) to justify this:
1. The life expectancy has increased in the last decades, so keeping the retirement age at 60 would mean the state runs a larger deficit paying out pensions OR
2. The state covers this gap by increasing taxes elsewhere in the economy. This has naturally unwanted side effects on investment and job-creation, which hinders economic recovery OR
3. The government reduces pension payouts (attempted political suicide).
4. If the debt goes out of control, France can no longer borrow at favourable interest rates on the world market due to favourable ratings (according to rating agencies, who gave AAAs to toxic mortgage subprime loans).
5. Then France will end up like Greece, because the Greeks have been retiring at 55 and receiving pensions at 105% of their last drawn salary (not to mention that their military expenditure was declared 'state secret').
But really, those arguments are justified on the side of the pension economics. What about the all the other parts of the government expenditure?
1. Sakorzy was accused of being 'le president des riches' because he recently decided to reduce the ceiling of taxation from 60% to 50%.
2. The president earns 20 thousand euros a month but most of his expenditures (food, clothes, transport etc.) are paid for by the state. In addition, Sakorzy also receives a pension (while he is still the president!) from his previous tenure as mayor of Paris. Ministers, Senators and Representatives all alike.
3. There was much waste in the government and a recent published memo circulated from Elysees ordered ministries and bureaucracies, many of which have exceeded their legal limit anyway, to reduce their staff.
4. A scandal erupted earlier this year when a junior minister without portfolio was found to have 2 chaffeurs at his disposal (which is against the rules).
In spite of all of the media coverage France receives, she is only ranked 10th in the world in terms of number of strikes (Surprise surprise!). Another surprise is that Denmark, Norway, Iceland, even Canada and South Korea are all ahead of France, according to
www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_str-labor-strikes. In stark contrast however are the Netherlands and Germany; these countries have far less (almost none) by comparison to the abovementioned countries.
This is probably a result of a cultural difference as one of my French teachers quaintly puts it 'The Dutch and the Germans prefer to talk things over before they decide whether to act, whereas the French prefer to rattle sabres before they negotiate.'
We will see whether this 'sabre-rattling' strategy is going to make Sarkozy change his mind on the 23rd...
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