#réformes des retraites

[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.

[the-bibrarian]

I see a lot of incomprehension online about our pension reform and the anger it generates in France, and what it often boils down to is "why are they so angry, 64 is plenty young to retire?"

I don't agree, but even if I did I would still oppose the reform. Here are some of the reasons why:

We already need 43 full years of work and tax contributions to be able to retire. Which means college-educated people were never going to retire at 64 anyway, let alone 62. This reform is aimed at people who start working early, mostly in low-paying jobs.

There's very little provision made in this law for hard/dangerous/manual labour.

There's no provision made for women who stop working to raise their children (51% of women already retire without a "complete career," which means they only retire on a partial pension, vs. 25% of men).

At 64, 1/3 of the poorest workers will already be dead. In France, between the richest and the poorest men, there's a 13 years gap in life expectancy.

Beyond life expectancy, at that age a lot of people (especially poorer, non-college educated) have too many health-related issues to be able to work. Not only is it cruel to ask them to work longer, if they can't work at all that's two more years to hold on with no pension

Unemployment in France is still fairly high (7%). Young people already have a hard time finding work, and this is going to make things even harder for them

Macron cut taxes on the rich and lost the country around 16 Billions € in tax revenue. Our estimated pension deficit should peak at 12 Billions worst case scenario.

While I'm on wealth redistribution (no, not soviet style, but I think there should be a cap on wealth concentration. Nobody needs to be a billionaire.): some of the massive profits of last year should go to workers and to the state to be redistributed, including to fund pensions. The state subsidized companies and corporations during the pandemic, Macron even said "no matter the cost" and spent 206 Billions € on businesses. Now he's going after the poorest workers in the country for an hypothetical 12 Billions??

Implicit in all of this is the question of systemic racism. French workers from immigrant families are already more likely to have started their careers early, to have low-paying jobs, are less likely to be college-educated, more at risk for disabilities and chronic illnesses, etc., so this is going to disproportionately affect them

This is not even touching on the fact that he didn't let lawmakers vote on it, meaning he knew he wouldn't get a majority of votes in parliament, or that 70% of the population is against this law. Pushing it through anyway is blatant authoritarianism.

TL;DR: This is only tangentially about retirement age. The reform will make life harder for people with low incomes, or with no higher education, for manual workers, for women—mothers especially, for POC, for people with disabilities or chronic conditions, etc. This is about solidarity.

Hope (sincerely) this helps.

[thaenatos]

paris, march 28 2023

"louis XVI, we beheaded him, macron we can do it again"

[blatterpussbunnyfromhell]

Vous savez quoi ? Je pense que le SMIC devrait être à 2000€ euros par mois, et que l'âge de départ à la retraite devrait être à 55 ans.

Aussi je pense qu'il faudrait taxer sévèrement tous ceux dont la fortune dépasse 5 millions d'euros et utiliser toute cette thune pour financer les retraites, les hôpitaux, les écoles publiques, etc., et régler les crises de logement, comme ça on éradique les 43 milliardaires en rendant la vie plus juste pour les 67 autres millions de gens vivant en France, y compris celleux qui meurent dans les rues sous -4°C en hiver ou +40°C en été. En fait, en utilisant la fortune de Bernard Arnault uniquement, on pourrait rémunérer tout le reste de la France non pas à 2000€ euros, mais à 2400€ environ. Et c'est seulement la fortune d'un mec.

Imaginez si la fortune des 42 autres était dans les caisses de l'État.

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

La grève autrement

Tout roule pour les retraites 8 mars 2023

[helshades]

Top image:

A crowd is to the People what a cry is to a voice

Middle:

We don’t want the Capitol, we want you to capitulate

Bottom left:

Before Macron, I had feathers

Bottom right:

Thieving on the Poor, Values of the Rich!

Last image:

The bludgeon is to totalitarian states what manipulation is to democracy ❤️

Credit: Olivier Loisel, Bordeaux protest, Thursday 23d March 2023.

[fidjiefidjie]

"Une révolution ne s'invite pas, c'est le peuple qui la décide..."

Source : Just Louis de Funès

😁Humour du jour🤣

Bel après-midi 👋

[depassement]

"Bisou Maman"

Boulevard de l'Hôpital, Paris (Ve-XIIIe), 7 mars 2023

[ottogatto]

Nouvelle pétition pour la dissolution des BRAV-M : c'est 5 minutes pour la signer et la partager. Battez-vous pour la faire atteindre 500'000 signatures encore plus rapidement que la première fois, battez-vous si vous voulez que les violences policières cessent :

@leplusgrandlivredumonde

[aromanticannibal]

if anyone's wondering how France's doing, protesters have burnt a puppet macron (the president we are very mad at him) and the police is as bad as in the USA. we are not ok!

[the-bibrarian]

Paris, yesterday (03/23/23). This is an excerpt from a video by journalist Amar Taoualit posted on twitter

This is what they’re doing to a peaceful, registered-with-the-proper-authorities march.

You can hear protesters shouting “children! there are children!” and “that’s my grandfather! my grandfather is on the ground!”

I think some families felt safe going because traditionally, union-backed, “registered” marches are peaceful and the riot police waits until they officially end, when only the more radical protesters are left, to attack. Not saying that is fine, but there was a tacit agreement for peace during the first hours of a protest. (That’s exactly what happened in Lyon yesterday, and there were also a few kids among protesters. It ended up being fine but it made me very anxious to see them, and it looks like I was right to worry.)

Things turned extremely violent in the night. I don’t feel like chronicling it, but suffice to say there were more that 900 fires in Paris. I don’t know what to think of the overwhelming silence from international media on the subject.

Anyway, I know that in principle we should all be able to protest and the police shouldn’t attack, and we’re supposed to be a democracy and we shouldn’t bow down to wanna-be autocrats that want to suppress our voices, etc.

La réalité c’est que pour quelques temps en tout cas, il faut laisser nos enfants à la maison, et que si vous êtes âgé, malade (asthmatique !), déjà blessé, personne handicapée, etc. il vaut peut-être mieux passer votre tour pour ces manifs-là. Il y a d’autres façons d’agir.

Notamment, je suis sûre que les syndicats ont besoin d’aide logistique et d’argent, et LFI, dont les députés sont sur le terrain, sur les piquets de grève, a certainement toujours besoin de plus de militants (j’ai pas ma carte chez eux pour être claire, mais je pense que c’est le parti qui soutient le plus sincèrement le mouvement).

Les députés LFI Louis Boyard (au centre) et Carlos Martens Bilongo (à droite), dans une manifestation le 20 mars. Photo de @teamroscoes (merci !!)

La député LFI Mathilde Panot au piquet de grève des éboueurs de Vitry-sur-Seine le 16 mars (photo de son twitter)

^ these are pictures of lawmakers from the leftist France Unbowed party participating in protests.

[dooareyastudy]

Not to be dramatic but wtf is France still a democracy?

[the-girl-who-sold-the-wxrld]

Nous sommes en 2023, dans une supposée démocratie, dans le "pays des droits de l'homme" et une femme a été mise en examen, risquant de la prison et une amende exorbitante pour avoir qualifié Macron d'ordure.

Je n'arrive même pas à exprimer à quel point c'est grave, très grave. Cela n'est pas censé arriver dans une démocratie.

•

It's 2023, in a supposed democracy, in the "land of human rights" and a woman has been indicted, facing prison and an exorbitant fine for calling Macron a piece of trash.

I can't even express how fucked up and serious this is. It isn't supposed to happen in a democracy.

Fuck Macron.

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Le personnel des homes pour personnes âgées trouve des moyens de garder nos aînés en activité et se charge de les divertir

March 31 2023

[helshades]

Long story short, our presidemperor Macron I the Detestable made a speech live on broadcast television and a vast number of French cities hosted a frying pan & casserole concert outside of town halls which would last for the entire duration of said televised allocution.

In case anyone was wondering, the Presidumb spoke of 'appeasement' and of moving on from this difficult period, so even more people took to the streets to burn things—we're on Day Three now and I don't believe anyone is feeling particularly appeased.

In an unfortunate move, some communication genius suggested that Macron made a big announcement of 'a hundred days' to 'rebuild the country together' (or somesuch silly platitude) and conclude this whole affair with the pension system; apparently, a bunch of French citizens still happen to know their Revolutionary history a bit, since some have made peculiarly snide comments about the last time one of our monarchs did a Hundred Days thing.

I mean, if he's giving us instructions now...

[fidjiefidjie]

Bonjour, bonne journée malgré la grève ☕️ 🪧

Grèves SNCF ,Gare du Nord🗼Paris 1986

Photo de Alexis Duclos