France is currently on strike. A profoundly leftist state has to face the consequences of the lack of vision of its leaders. Here are some images.
Actually, going on strike and having strong unions (syndicates) is typically French. Their effectiveness is another story. Essentially, when the country is on strike, it usually means that everyone is pissed off by a system on the edge, deeply dysfunctional, that is becoming even more unusable. Transportation fails, shops fail, administration stops, everyone is furious, each of us is losing individually and the country turns upside down. But the added pressure does not seem to produce significant results. In the end, the quarrel dies out and everyone returns to their workplace, frustrated. The yellow vests are a typical example of a failed social movement defeated by a cynical and inflexible administration.
Going more in details, if you work in the public sector, even if you are on strike, the management and ultimately the government has the power to requisition you. This means that you only have the right to declare yourself on strike but you are forced by the state to come to work against your wish. On the other hand, you are paid less because, obviously, you are on strike. In the end, you are declaratively on strike but you work just as if there is no strike and you are paid less. No wonder that there is diminished appetite for going on strike no matter how bad your working conditions are. In the end, somehow, the French leadership has managed to defeat the very idea of going on strike. Bureaucrats can cry victory. Civil disobedience can safely be declared dead, because economically one can’t use this path for fear of poverty, and socially one can’t use this path for fear of going to prison. In conclusion, a day of strike is just another day at work plus the inconvenience caused by the dysfunction of transportation and administration and of society in general.
Personally I have no opinion about the age of retirement – what is currently on the menu for today’s strikes. I don’t think I will live long enough, so I don’t care much about this issue. But not everyone is like me. Some people truly want to benefit from their retirement. And, after some time, I think that they have earned their right to retire and make the most of this last period of their life. So on this last photo taken today, on the banner, there is a text that says this:
« Il n’y a pas de déficit des retraites. Il y a un déficit du cœur. Les seniors ont droit de vivre dignement de la retraite. »
“There is no retirement deficit. There is a deficit of the heart. Seniors have the right to live with dignity their retirement.”
You might say that people don’t want to work. Maybe, a minority. But I disagree overall. In an age when robots and the artificial intelligence helps people a lot, the necessity for human work should drop; people should have more time for their spiritual, creative or emotional pursuits while the robots are working for them (actually fulfilling their intended role). The fact that you want to increase the age of retirement proves that you are lacking qualified workforce and you are trying to push the moment when you encounter the precipice by 2-3 years. This is bad management. People will age and eventually die. And 3 years from now you will have to face the same problem: you have nobody willing or able to work. Yes, I understand, you will no longer stand for elections and you will not be forced to assume the consequences; someone else will have to do this instead. That’s politically smart. But it is also cynical, calculated, cold and eventually… empty.
What is written on that banner is actually true: there is a deficit of the heart at the origin of everything happening these days. The heartlessness has reached alpine heights…
I’ve been branded a Leftie by friends back in the UK because I have expressed sympathy for the striking railway, health care and postal workers, as well as climate activists like Just Stop Oil and Extinction rebellion, and very critical of the current Tory administration. They could not be more wrong – I voted Tory most of life, as well as Labour and Liberal Democrat when I felt their policies were best for my needs. This is how democracy is supposed to work. But it doesn’t in the UK because of the ridiculous “First Past The Post” electoral system that guarantees the smaller parties don’t get a look in.
That said, I do think trades unions have an important role in a democratic society. We had a strong (probably too strong) movement back in the 1970s that ushered in Thatcherism, that largely dismantled the movement. Blair’s Labour administrations further weakened unions. But over the past 10 years, and in particular in my view the past 5 years or so, the movement has enjoyed – and continues to enjoy – a resurgence. This has inevitably prompted the Tories, in a desperate attempt to cling to power, to introduce further anti-union legislation. This move should be fought against with tooth and nail. The right to protest, and to strike where there is clear good cause (as currently in the rail and health worker cases) should be a fundamental right for workers. I accept there needs to be due process and majority union membership in favour before starting action, and that every care be taken to lessen the danger and inconvenience to the general public but that should not be used as an excuse for government interference.
Raising the retirement age, as is the root of the present French issues, is more difficult to call. France, as I understand it, has the lowest in the EU, and certainly much lower than that in my UK homeland or adopted Poland, and I can understand that with people living healthier and longer lives they are able to work longer and contribute, through taxation, to the funding of whatever welfare state a country provides. This seems fair to me, so were I in France I would support the government in its wish to raise the retirement age. I can also understand the reluctance not to lose any retirement years. I would love to have been able to retire earlier than I did – I walked away at 66, a year later than the then official age for health reasons, but financially probably needed a couple more years of work. It’s left me less well off than I would like. I too never imagined living to retirement age, but here I am, hitting 70 in a few weeks and thankfully in robust health and, please God, good for another 10 years or more. But I wish, really really wish, I had been more sensible and made better provision for an age that I could not imagine attaining when I was younger and in my prime earning years. Don’t make the same mistake I did!
Perhaps I’m not using the terms correctly, so I need to explain what I mean by Left or Right. Left equals for me the welfare state that pays you to do nothing (be unproductive). More recently, Left means also the current madness of gender confusion and the anarchy caused by the BLM vs. police in the States. Right equals for me the competition, often savage and cynical, from which the best wins, often at the cost of exclusion of the weakest and the loss of humanity. Today’s society is very much shifted to the left, so much so that what was traditionally Right has become Center and what was Left has become extreme Left. France is a rich welfare state that has afforded a lot of stupid decisions and now has to pay what is due.
I was originally pretty much to the left, deeply concerned by ecologist/green issues and also quite progressive (I like new stuff). Over the years I became more to the right, valuing quality and the entrepreneurial mentalities, while retaining the common sense of not sacrificing the weaker ones and the necessity of maintaining traditions that give stability. Also, mostly a tolerant individual (live and let live everyone the way one wants), I am deeply annoyed of the recent excessive ideological propagandas.
This being said, I use my own filter of critical thinking while reading/watching the news. I am slightly familiar with the politics in the UK and I know it’s either Labour or Tory or Lib Dems. And I find the first 2 quite incompetent. I also know what happened with the unions in the UK. And I think the Tory will lose the elections because the active population is being replaced by migrants (who love the Left… I should do the same so as not to be a hypocrite, because the stupid leftist policies created vacancies for Eastern doctors in the West).
Regarding the retirement age, it is true that it is quite low in France compared to Romania. I think that the aim is a European average around 65 years but it might increase in the medium future everywhere. Medically, 65 is the border between being an adult and a senior, so it makes a bit sense to work the entire adult life and retire when you’re an elder. Anyway, I think it will become a law anyway given the weakness of the protests…
Thanks for thinking about me and for your advice! However, not believing I will reach retirement doesn’t mean I am reckless. I always keep future in mind but I however reject this Swiss mentality currently around me that one should work tirelessly their entire life so as to have a beautiful retirement time. From what I see in the hospital, the old age is always nasty, depressing and full of diseases, plus freedom-limiting. So I take the middle-path.
Interesting blog post.