Cycling UK Forum

well not for the next few days? if you are traveling there, as the country is in shutdown mode?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50643323

When I read down the page

France currently has a system comprising dozens of different schemes and Mr Macron wants to create a unified system, which he says would be more fair.

His new plan aims to reward employees for each day worked, awarding points that would later be transferred into future pension benefits.

The official retirement age has been raised in the last decade from 60 to 62, but remains one of the lowest among the OECD group of rich nations - in the UK, for example, the retirement age is 66.

wow no wonder they are protesting, can I get adopted by some one in France? pls.

Any one living there tell us from the horses mouth how bad it is?

Well, the shops are open and the post was delivered. For the rest, being retired, I've hardly bothered to look.

From what I've seen it's mainly the SNCF & hospitals that are cutting up rough. SNCF folk have low retirement ages, largely because driving a steam-engine left people knackered at 50, and successive governments have shied away from raising the age since. The bellyache now is that the hours are lousy, the responsibility vast, and at the weekend a driver could be at the far end of France from his family. As for hospital staff, they've been shafted everywhere since hospitals were invented, so more power to them.

Oh, the teachers are out as well.

Comic relief: Extinction Rebellion have proclaimed electric scooters to be strike breakers.

Just gotta love the French...

Al

You've highlighted the change in retirement age, but I think at least as much protest is about lower payouts and the principle of consolidating them all into one less-accountable, more-easily-raidable-by-government fund, isn't it?

Roads around here were really quiet yesterday. Schools were closed so my daughter had to leave her daughter with family nearby. She went to work as usual and got there earlier than normal as the roads were so empty.
Shops were open as usual but some garages still had no fuel because a blockade of the fuel depots a day before the strike stopped deliveries.
I'm always amazed by the general acceptance of these disputes.
Some of the pensions in the public sector are very generous, especially govt.employees. Overall pensions are better here than the UK but with an aging population hard to fund.

Francovendee, you hit the nail on the head. All of Europe has an ageing population, with people living much longer. It's a hard nettle for any government to grasp, but unless they do, the country will be bankrupt.
I don't know what the answer is, but I know my kids are going to be far worse off in terms of pension payout than me - and mine is worse than my dad's final salary system.
I keep telling them that it's not boring. It means the difference between living reasonably or in poverty, so find ways to save for the future.