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Comment by sebstefan | Hacker News Reader

As far as I know, the title is wrong, only the senate approved the bill. That's not enough for France to legalize anything

The way it works in France is there's two chambers of parliament, the senate and the Assemblée nationale (that I translate to "the parliament"). Unless the law changes something in the constitution, the senate is just there to advise the parliament. If they'd voted no, it wouldn't have mattered.

It is up to the parliament to vote laws into effect

But the neolib right, the far-right and the conservative right compose >60% of the parliament so there's no need to hold your horses too much. For the retirement law, they didn't have the support of the far-right. Since I don't think the far-right is going to suddenly find themselves privacy lovers I think we can safely assume it'll go through

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Parliament certainly didn't stop Macron from pushing threw the pension reform against the will of virtually everyone. It's a pity that most of the media doesn't cover the legitimate concerns of the french population.

Yep even if it goes through the parliament they can avoid a vote

Then the parliament can whip out a motion of non-confidence, which, if signed by 50% of the parliament, removes the law and fires the government.

Stress on the "signed by 50% of the parliament" => If a congressman doesn't sign it, it's counted as a no. They almost never go through. Not to mention that a fair number of congressmen can be against a law, but also against firing the government. So by definition they always have that advantage on these votes too

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

https://www.lexpress.fr/economie/retraites-ce-qu-il-faut-ret...

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

Money is also fungible, the French could priotize the pensions and defund something else to pay for it if that is the will of the people.

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.

> the price paid by their own children

If French workers allow Macron to jack the retirement age up, the price surely will be felt by their own children.

The media was full of the concerns of the french population about the pension reform.

For someone who is unfamiliar with French law, is the parliament able to propose legislature (either by advocating in the senate or by pushing up to the senate)? Or do they only determine / vote on what becomes law?

The national assembly (our House) is usually the one with the last say.

Bills are either "law proposals", meaning they are introduced by parliament members, or "law project", introduced by the government.

The parliament is able to propose legislature yes

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