Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Why Are the French Striking Again?" video.

  1. It's rare to get a situation where the public votes in favour of having to work longer, so it's understandable why the public would react that way. The problem for France, if they want to remain competitive with other western countries, they'll need to change because the reality is, France has one of the lowest pension age in the western world, it's also got one of the highest life expectancy and don't the French also work some of the lowest hours? When you put it all together, this is expensive for the country to maintain, it also likely makes France less appealing for investment when companies can pick any other EU country and still have easy access to the market and even if it wasn't for the EU market, many companies would likely pick other more favourable countries that offer a better deal for them. I do wonder if pension retirement should be tied into life expectancy of a country, because overall, people are living longer and if pension retirement doesn't go up, it becomes a lot more expensive for the government and taxpayers in the country and considering that France life expectancy is 83, so quite high for western standards, it's easy to see how much of a burden this is going to be on the French taxpayers longer term, especially on the young if the pension reforms don't change. So as much as none of us want pension retirement age to go up, it's probably wise that it does for the long term countries health, otherwise, there's likely going to be a massive tax burden on the people, especially the younger generation and that situation is going to get worse over the coming decades unless major reforms are done. With all that said, I don't agree with Macron trying to force this through, there really needs to be a case made to the public and other political parties on why pension reforms need to change, still, I've got to admire the French for willing to protest on these things, a lot of countries seem to lack a spine and just accept things for how they are.
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  2.  @roxane5339  I do agree with you that it will impact different groups of people in different ways, but if France is to remain competitive, it's going to have to change, especially as the demographics change with more people drawing their pension, which is looking likely for many western countries over the coming decades.
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