France: Fuel Strike and other Actions

Yes, with any luck.
Fancy that, people standing up for the rights of others - an alien concept if you vote for the nazsties.

I haven’t had or seen any problems in Burgundy’ did a round trip from Paris to Brittany / Paris all filling stations have fuel

I’m still trying to figure out the complexities of the French pension reforms, but as far as I can establish (courtesy mainly of Le Monde) most workers aren’t in the public sector and won’t be adversely affected. There are actually only eleven of the much cited forty-two pension funds that are classed as ‘spĂ©cial’ and thus likely to be adversely affected, but as far as I understand, the government hasn’t yet decided how these might be reconfigured so that people aren’t unduly disadvantaged. However, one of these eleven groups are lawyers, so this might go on for some time!

I found the following analysis useful;-

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We are lunching with a group of French pals on Sunday
 so I can question them about “pension reform” - before they start questioning me about Brexit
 :crazy_face:

My ferry last night from Dieppe was cancelled, just boarded now 5.30am. No problem on the roads yesterday, only a few jilly Jones at one roundabout in Dieppe

The south west trains have been offered a deal keeping the extra guard, the unions are doing this just to support the Labour Party and their nationalisation plans. The union has the funds to pay the strikers their wages so a no brainer for them.

And I see Johnson intends to pass a law to make it illegal for transport workers to strike. Their employers must be rubbing their hands in glee over that


Good post for once, everyone seems pro protesting and pro left wing in the Uk.
The pension reforms state they want to Discuss raising the pension age to 64 from 62, this needs to happen as French debt is the 3 rd highest in Europe after Greece and Italy expected to be 99.96% of GDP next year. They have been warned about breaking EU spending rules along with Italy.
Why should people on the trains, lawyers, civil servants get to retire at 50 or thereabouts, they have easier jobs than most. It should be a level playing field to help the poor and people who are self employed. It’s not easy when you end up living on 10 k or less after cotisations and charges.

It makes sense for public services, transport. Under freedom of movement in the EU I could never understand why in France they get away with blocking ports or air traffic strikes.

I’m fine thanks just can’t believe the views of many , mainly because they have money and wish to live in their little home in France, so everything is left wing, and pro France , there are lots of good and bad things in both countries.

The ordinary working person only has the withdrawal of their labour as their only leverage, in case of dispute.
Why would any employer in the public or private sector deprive them of that ?
As far as I recall, the abolition of slavery took place in 1833, throughout most of the Empire
are you suggesting it be re-introduced ?

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Do you believe the views of folk who are not wealthy
 even if those views do not match your own ??? :zipper_mouth_face:

and just how does one judge the wealth of another 
:thinking:

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So what’s to stop employers cutting workers’ wages if workers can’t do anything about it? It’s a very dangerous path to set off down.
A sign of things to come, as you might say, once EU worker protection goes out the window?

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I think you might be taking “freedom of movement” a tad too literally!
It’s to do with the principle, not the practice.

A bit of a contradiction in terms, surely?

You would expect a foreign person who has CHOSEN to live here to be pro France, why would they be here otherwise? They have a country of their own.

You have a choice like anyone else who chooses to change countries, if you don’t like it you can go back, nobody is forcing you to live here, presumably. So it can’t actually be that bad, living with our evil socialist ways.
I don’t think you understand us very well.

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This is what comes of reading papers edited by that twat George Osborn, I wouldn’t put too much store in that drivel if I were you.

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Lawyers certainly do not get to retire at 50
what the bar association has done is to create and manage their own pension fund with its own rules, rather like a private pension fund, but organised for the benefit of its members. Same with the medical professionals (well doctors/surgeons/consultants, at least). Clearly, there is a degree of corporatism going on here, but the fact of the matter is that these particular pension funds are not running a deficit, from what I understand. Being forced to transfer them into deficit-running general pension schemes will clearly not go down well with them.

The CIPAV (independent professions such as non-barrister lawyers, architects, technical experts and other consultants, and independent workers, artisans, craftsman, etc), to which I contribute heavily, is by all accounts about to become insolvable (or perhaps hopefully they have recently managed to redress the accounts), but in the future doesn’t have enough funds to support all of its current future retirees, and this despite the significant contributions independents make already. With the transfer to the new Macron regime, we will end up probably having to pay more into the system, and potentially having a smaller pension after working for longer to get it, so it then becomes a question of whether it is still a viable option to remain an independent or become a salaried worker. This is naturally a huge issue for some people.

Those in the public sector, where wages and pensions are lower anyway, even if they can retire earlier than most in the private sector, believe that they stand to lose out both financially and in the duration for which they will have to contribute before being able to retire on a full pension. I can imagine that for them, they see these reforms (although we don’t have all the details yet) as catastrophic.

Whilst I am a private sector, independent worker, I can sympathise with the perceived grievances of the public sector, but I feel it premature to engage in strike action without knowing all of the detail beforehand. The government has been particularly vague about the detail, though.

Not surprising therefore, that we find ourselves in another potentially protracted bout of civil unrest.