#genz had enough of old politicians shit

[sam-blackbird]

Hi! If you’re a foreigner looking at France right now (march 2023), you could wonder: “WTF is happening there?!”

I’m French, so let me explain (from what I understood, thanks to friends’ explanation and researches on my own, the government things are not very clear, perhaps on purpose).

If you have no clues, there are currently a lot of demonstrations (and some riots) and strikes. Some are violents and some are peaceful, depending, but I’ll come to that later. First of all: why? Because of a reform on the retirement, basically.

You may think, well, going from 62 to 64 years old don’t seem excessive, right? But that’s only the visible part of the iceberg actually. First, that move was explain by the government by saying it will avoid the collapsing of the system (of retirement). HOWEVER, the minimal age of retirement, 64, can only be 64 if you have: -- a full career (without any unemployed time, and/or part-time work) -- began to work early (like 16/18 years old) -- your 43 annuities (basically, it means that you have to work 43 years, if I understood clearly)

With all being wrote, it means that for a majority of French ppl, counts don’t had up: most of the ppl will have to work until around their 65-67 years.

Moreover, if you leave before the minimal age of retirement (which will be 64), you will not receive entirely your retirement money.

We were told that that reform will allow to save the French pension system --as it will allow to augment the retirement money up to 1200€ (euros). But the money can be took somewhere else, like in the super riches pockets for example, by taking them up to something like 2%, for the system to be fiable. Furthermore, only a minority of French people will obtain these 1200€, as you need a full career without any stop in it to gain it. So that reform penalizes everybody, especially precarious people and women.

That’s why a lot of people are angry right now in France.

On top of that, Elizabeth Born, the French Prime Minister (she is just under the French president in the power ladder in France), pass that reform against the Parlement agreement, using the 49th article of the constitution, paragraph 3 (we call it “49.3″).

That’s why we are angry. That’s why we demonstrate. That’s why there are strikes.

Most of them are non-violent, or at least, the violence don’t come from the demonstrators, but rather from the police officers --who seems to think they have all the rights because they wear the uniform. There are some police brutality (and if some French see that and needs some advices in case of police arrestations, I can provide them). There are also some riots and some thugs who breaks windows and/or stole things and/or deteriorates things / urban furnitures, but it’s not the majority of it (despite what BFM TV claims) (btw, be careful of what you’re watching, some images show the demonstrations as riots).

A lot of young people participates in these demonstrations, because it’s our future that’s at stake. We’re angry. We’ve had enough. All our life (I take my case as an example, for context, I’ll be 20 this year), we’ve been told our planet is dying, that we won’t be able to own a house (after the 2008 economic crisis), and now that we’ll have to work until our old age? We say: that’s enough. So we’re revolting. (some of us even say it’s time to guillotine Macron, to do a remake of 1789)

Some of us use the energy of the desperation, because they have nothing to lose, which make them unpredictable (and maybe dangerous). That’s what’s happening, basically.