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Comment by srge | Hacker News Reader

France is such a shit show right now (source: I am French). The president is weak because of his poor result at last election and the the left is using this to create a crisis in the country. It doesn’t matter that the gouvernement is basically bankrupted and that the boomers will need to be fed, housed, payed and healed all the way until they die.

For a 70 millions people country, only 30 millions are considered active and soon we will have 20 millions retirees.

And knowing exactly this, the left is blocking the country, attacking to police and burning dumpsters.

In Switzerland, retirement is at 65 since a while ago and the retirement is financed through capitalization whereas in France, active people pay for retirees.

I let you guess which system proves to be the best for working people and retirees alike…

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> source: I am French

63% of French continue to approve protests [0] 73% of those surveyed approve when opponents of the reform block toll barriers and allow motorists to pass for free [1]

Your opinion does not look representative to me. It looks like French people have a social model that they want to keep.

[0] https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/sondage-bfmtv-retraites-63-des... [1] https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/sondage-exclusif-contestati...

A social model has a cost. The choice is not between work longer or not. It’s between work longer or pay more. Macron choses the former. You may disagree but as the 5th republic allows him, he governs and he choses.

Also, government is not a popularity contest. In fact, maybe we should trust the politicians especially when they are pushing unpopular reforms.

Edit: words and clarity

IMO, not all sources of funding are being exploited.

For instance, taxes on property should be restrictive to the point that having a second residence would be a net cost, and a third would be only accessible to multi-millionaires.

Business can be financially penalized to own property as well and force to sell or operate at loss.

Heritage could be better taxed and not just progressively but exponentially and without known loopholes.

There are lots of options.

The protests just make these options look more realistic, this is why the general population approves of the protests.

France is the most taxed country of the OCDE

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prélèvements_obligatoires

Enough said no?

Prélèvements_obligatoires aren't taxes, it includes pensions and healthcare too, by the virtue of being public-funded, now add private healthcare and pensions () in other oecd countries otherwise it's an apple-to-orange comparison.

Belgians would easily dispute the first place in overall tax burden.

> The president is weak because of his poor result at last election and the the left is using this to create a crisis in the country.

Then the weak President probably shouldn't have used article 49.3 provisions to pass the unpopular law. Considering that the outcome of this decision was obvious and that they were warned specifically that this would happen, I'd say the President and his Prime Minister created this crisis.

The people are simply unwilling to let this mismanagement slide.

The executive order (49.3) is constitutionally legal. The country needs reforms. If you don’t agree vote accordingly at the next elections.

The people famously love technicalities. Reforms that are not democratic will be met with protest. If you push laws through against the will of the people then expect riots.

Point is.. no one is "taking advantage" of the President. It's entirely self-inflicted.

Exactly. When did we decide to distrust politicians when they are destroying their own popularity in order to reform the country ?

That has always been the case.

You're approaching this backwards, probably because you're hoping it will allow you to continue to be dismissive without having to put forward an argument of merit based upon the facts.

You're also missing the obvious. He could have just retired if he believed this so strongly yet was unable to _convince_ the legislature to pass the law. He clearly wants the job more than he wants his popularity. That is a person who cannot be trusted.

This is obvious.

My take was that Macron was seen as a very unpopular globalist selling out the French people, do you feel this is accurate @srge? As is the case in many places, particularly the USA (where I currently am) the whole left/right party team sports system is often cited by the media to describe the factions and positions of groups of people. I feel this is breaking down, and that we have various anarchists on both the left and right attempting to destroy a system that isn't serving them. This distorts the perception of more moderate voters and positions. I'm highly aware of how tenacious the Gillet Jeunes were prior to the pandemic.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/01/11/the-gilets-jaunes-a...

> very unpopular globalist selling out the French people

Yes he was a banker before running for office. The left is pushing this narrative a lot. Forgetting that their leader is a millionaire who never worked in the private sector…

> millionaire who never worked in the private sector

That is the most French thing I've heard all week.

The net worth of every politician is public. Jean-Luc Mélenchon the leader of the left is an actual millionnaire. He always has been a professional politician.

This guy wants to run a country and make it prosper…

The leader of the left, or just a leftist leader?

I don't care for simplistic reductionism, it reminds me of Le Pen's rhetoric.

Sounds like Biden, career politician! (Although admittedly Biden enabled the vast US credit card usury industry out of Delaware with the private banking sector)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/biden-bankruptc...

In France, most president were career politicians as well, AFAIK only three of them actually worked in the private sector at some point (Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing and Macron, all of which were banker prior, in he same investment bank).

So not a lot of diversity, but even if that's regrettable, it's pretty ridiculous to blame Mélenchon for that.

I looked that up before posting, out of curiosity.

Seems Biden only became a millionaire after his stint as VP, from book sales and speaking engagements. Being in Congress doesn't pay much.

I categorize 'the left' as either anarchist/progressives with no practical experience in running anything, the petit bourgeois woke leftist trend fashionistas but with lamentably few actual working class (in some case historically as there are few jobs) moderate left representation. The same issues are also a crisis in the UK (I'm a UK citizen) - ultra wealthy globalist leadership, straw man opposition, angry, frustrated electorate who feel no one is representing them.

The government made a contract and now they want to change the terms. "You pay into this fund now and we'll pay you back at 55....60....62....."

What you don't do is change the terms without consulting with the constituents. Because that's how you end your political career in the medium term and cause protests in the immediate term.

> > In Switzerland

Switzerland wins because they are few people who make contrarian choices all the time and read the fine print on any international accord to see how they can free ride on the shoulders of all the other signatories.

Big countries like France, Germany, UK etc. they cannot be compared with the Switzerlands, Singapores, Hong Kongs of the world.

French retire way earlier compared to other euro small or big states.

I am not a Swiss but your comment sounds pretty insulting for them

Small countries (Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, Liechtenstein, ...) not only cannot project military power but can barely defend themselves under modern conditions. So they nominally adopt a posture of neutrality and pragmatically turn themselves into tax havens or free ports in order to maintain a pseudo-autonomy. This often leads to the populace being little more than a labor pool in the service of a managerial class.

France is such a shit show right now (source: I am French). All of that because the president is weak because of his poor result, but he's a narcissist who think he's smarter than anyone else and is unable to even form a majority with the traditional right party who shares most of his agenda.

And because he must always be the smartest in the room, the government has to be a bunch of idiots (this is almost a literal translation of quote from the prime minister, the exact quote being «Un gouvernement composé à moitié de débiles»).

When you govern a country with less than 30% of citizen's approval acting as if none of their opinions on the subject mattered, no shit people are unhappy and start doing stupid stuff…

A weak president using executive powers to push through laws that the vast majority of the country opposes is leading to social chaos...who could have predicted this?

Don't even try to argue European politics with the American techbros on this site. They support a violent anti-capitalist revolution in France while fantasizing about gunning down homeless people in San Francisco.

Yeah I am surprised to be downvoted…

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