French behaving in classic "Hamlin" manner or- Why we never want to pay the price 101!!

The article below goes into some detail regarding the new French Pension Reform.

They are protesting a bill that does not penalize parents from having children in their working years and raises the retirement age by 5 years to withdraw without penalty. This sort of reform would actually ensure that a pension actually exists when it is time to have one, as opposed to what is happening here in the USA where the state plans have made pie in the sky estimates of pension contributions and are now beginning to fail at funding them.

It also shows that being a leader is not a popularity contest and as such may have put Sarkozy in jeopardy as his idiot opposition party has clambered all over the "rabble ticket" in Rush Limbaugh style to tell them that the first thing that they will do is lower the retirement age back to 60 if they get elected!!

 

 

French Unions Threaten Open-Ended Strikes Over Pensions

By Helene Fouquet - Oct 12, 2010 5:51 AM ET

The Paris metro has been disrupted less by workers’ strikes since 2007, when the government introduced what it called the minimum service. Photographer: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president. Photographer: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg

French workers are demonstrating today for the fourth time in five weeks in nationwide marches, disrupting rail and air traffic as labor unions threaten open- ended strikes to press President Nicolas Sarkozy to scrap his pension-system overhaul.
Railway and Paris subway workers and as well as teachers, air-traffic controllers and port and refinery employees walked out to protest plans to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60 and lift the age for a full pension to 67 from 65. Unions, which warn they may renew the strike every 24 hours unless the government backs down, said 244 marches will take place across France today in cities including Toulouse, Marseille and Nantes.
“The government is forcing us to step up our actions because it’s made no move after the other days of protest,” Francois Chereque, head of the CFDT labor union, said on France 2 television. “I am sending a last call to the government: listen to our demands.”
Three rallies since Sept. 7 that brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets failed to derail Sarkozy’s retirement proposals. The government says the changes are needed to help France cope with an aging population and help balance the pension system’s budget by 2018. Labor unions called for more demonstrations on Oct. 16.
Senate Debate
While the government will make some changes to the bill, including a measure to ensure that parents who interrupted their careers to raise children won’t be penalized, Sarkozy’s plan is likely to win final parliamentary passage before the end of the month, Raymond Soubie, the president’s aide, said on Oct. 8.
The bill, approved by the National Assembly last month, was being debated late yesterday in the Senate. The upper chamber of Parliament has already approved the parts of the legislation raising the retirement age and the full pension age.

From Bloomberg 10/12/2010