Une Greve

Welcome to our winter of French discontent.  In summary, the French government is attempting to revise the retirement rules.  They want to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.  This, of course, has set off strikes across industries and the country since the beginning of September.

Living in the suburbs and with Julia not yet having returned to work we have not been that effected by the strikes.  Except for having to cancel a couple of language lessons due to train disruption life has proceeded as normal.

The strikers have a good plan in that they are attempting to shut down the oil/gas refineries and ports so that fuel is unable to be processed or transported.  As of today about 30% of petrol stations are closed due to lack of fuel.  Julia spoke to one of our neighbors yesterday who spent an hour driving around looking for an open petrol station.  We were smart and filed both tanks as soon as we heard about the refineries being struck and since we do not drive much we should be okay with petrol for a month or more.

The only other time we were effected by the strikes was when I tried to go to Castorama (DIY store) and when I reached the street on which it is located it was blocked by police motorcycles.  Apparently there is a high school on the street and the students were violent that day and turning over and burning cars.

That is the one aspect of this strike that I did not understand in the beginning.  Why were high school and college students striking to protest a rise in the retirement age?  At first I was amazed at their participation and shocked at their lack of a grasp of economics as it is clear that France cannot continue within the current system as their are currently just over 3 workers for every retiree and within a decade the ration will fall to 2 to 1.  A ratio that is clearly fiscally untenable.

Yesterday I finally found an article which provided me with the rationale behind the youngsters supporting the strikes.  Apparently the age that a French person gets their first real job is 27.  An astonishing fact that I was unaware of.  Of course, there are temporary jobs that they can attain that will pay the bills but it is at an average of 27 where they get their first job that allows them to begin contributing to the social system to which the changes are proposed.  The youngsters are upset because if the people that already have jobs are forced to stay in the jobs two years longer it means that there will be an even greater wait for the young French to get their first real job.

C'est la vie en France!