La Grève!

   The strikes in France continue, but their severity has been lessened greatly by the start of the Toussaints (All Saints) vacation break.  These have been the most disruptive of the strikes since we arrived in 2005.  Their primary purpose was to register the general unhappiness of the French people at the idea of retiring at 62 instead of 60. 


   What most people outside of France do not realize is that in order to sweep the elections and beat his arch enemy Jacques Chirac, Francois Mitterrand ran on a platform of severely decreasing the retirement age.  He cut the retirement age to 60 from 65 after he swept into power at the head of a Socialist-Communist alliance in 1981 for the first of two terms that lasted until 1995.  Once a gift like that is given, it is sorely difficult to take it back!!

   The newspapers say more than 70% of the French support the strike, but it seems that there is a difference in their minds between supporting the idea or the right to strike versus the reason for the strike.  Most people that we have talked to realize that France must increase the age of retirement both to appease the budgetary problems as well as to compete with the Western world. I have to admit that if I were offered the opportunity to retire AND still receive most of my salary at 60 years young, I would jump at it and be pretty grumpy at having to give it up.

This chart pilfered from Wikipedia is really interesting as it shows that after 60 (currently) only 12% of the French population continues to work whereas in the US, 43% are still going strong.  It helps that the French enjoy a much higher monthly pension that is meant to replace the monthly salary and not to merely pay for the cable bill as in the US.

Country	Early retirement age	Normal retirement age	Employed, 55–59	Employed, 60–64	Employed, 65–69	Employed, 70+
Austria	60 (57)	65 (60)	39%	7%	1%	0%
Belgium	60	65	45%	12%	1%	0%
Denmark	none	65	77%	35%	9%	1%
France	none	60*	51%	12%	1%	0%
Germany	65	67	64%	23%	3%	0%
Greece	57	65	51%	31%	8%	1%
Italy	57	65 (60)	34%	12%	1%	0%
Netherlands	60	65	53%	22%	3%	0%
Norway	62	67	?	?	?	?
Spain	60	65	46%	22%	0%	0%
Sweden	61	65	78%	58%	5%	1%
Switzerland	63 (61), [58]	65 (64)	77%	46%	7%	2%
United Kingdom	none	65	69%	40%	10%	2%
United States	62	66	66%	43%	20%	5%