The french population is indeed concerned by the increasing of the pension age, but not concerned at all with the price paid by their own children for not increasing it. So I wouldn't call the concerns of the population necessarily legitimate, as present and pressing as they might be.
People online assume too much with the french pension reform
Government reports forecasted a possible deficit that was in the ranges of €10bn in 10+ years, which is tiny, along with other predictions that put it lower and even predicted profits. Uncertainty's equal across any of them
Many alternatives were brought up by either the opposition and various economists; reducing pensions, increasing dues, pointing out new/other sources of income, ... many of them coming from right-wing political commentators. It was a trainwreck across the board. Then the government politely declined all suggestions without much in the way of arguments and pushed the reform over the parliament
You don't get all the major unions, including the ones that are basically carpets, to call for a strike for a pension reform if it's legitimate. Nor do you get 93% of the working population to disagree with you. We have pension reforms every 5 years or so and while they usually cause some forms of strikes, we never get 3+million people in the streets for something like that. If you were french you'd be pissed off. But you're not, so you just followed the story through the prism of foreign news and they often can't afford to go super in-depth
You are right that I'm not French, I'm Swiss and we have 5 years longer until pension. I would love to have solutions which can keep it as low as in France, but I must wonder, how come no other country in the world (except Greece, which defaulted) was able to apply them already?
I'll take only one idea from above: I imagine the same people would go on the same streets if their pensions would be reduced, and by the way, even today you can retire earlier with a reduced pension - so I totally miss this point. Same for increasing dues - one can simply put more money aside any time.
> You are right that I'm not French, I'm Swiss and we have 5 years longer until pension. I would love to have solutions which can keep it as low as in France, but I must wonder, how come no other country in the world (except Greece, which defaulted) was able to apply them already?
You can check the government report on which everything in this pension reform is based on
Article fails to mention covid killing off a bunch of old people but the timing of that helped too.
We don't do capitalized pensions aka "putting money aside" and we don't want to. We pay for the currently retired with the dues of those currently working in real time
Some of the same people would show up in the streets for reduced pensions or increased dues if it came down to a deficit (which isn't the case right now), but nothing like May
Well then the solution was right there and you say people would go on the streets just as well. A complex but working system of three pillars of pensions vs depending completely on the state with one single pillar, that's the difference between pragmatism and magical thinking.
You do realize we go on the streets for everything?
>magical thinking.
Why do you feel the need to contribute to topics you know nothing about
The data is right there: the system was not in a deficit that warranted any drastic action. You're stuck in a swiss "medicine should taste bad" mentality. You fetishized centrism to such a level you're mistaking it for wisdom
There is a lot more immediate causes for the drop of living standards in France than the pension reform. Virtue signaling at the expense of the french people, nepotism corruption and Macron selling off critical infrastructure among them.
However I don't see the people going on the streets for those points you mentioned here, but only for the increased age of retirement. What safety will they have that, if the pension age stays as such (and they defeated Macron yay), the nepotism and corruption and all that will not continue? Going on the street is a great weapon and I admire it, but in this particular case I think it's going after the wrong end of the problem (which you seem to recognize as well).
But if the public is ok with paying this despite the increasing cost, why block them?
France has some of the best welfare in the world and from what I hear from my French friends they're not opposed to paying for it, unlike more neoliberal countries where tax is a swear word.
The public isn't ok with paying for it though. They only want to receive it. The yellow vests were protesting a level of taxation that couldn't sustain the pensions, let alone one that can.
