Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Why Are the French Striking Again?" video.

  1. In a way, I kinda look at France with envy for having the privilege to protest so hard about an increase in retirement age... it's both understandable that people would protest to that, but it's also understandable why such a proposal would be in the books. I live in a developing nation that has a mixed retirement age of 63 for men, and 58 for women, with 35 and 30 years of work for full retirement respectively. But we are also a country nowhere near France in terms of aging population and average age of the workforce... we are nowhere near the average of EU nations on that aspect, and France I think is amongst the EU countries most affected by this. Now, of course, that isn't to say I disagree with some of the things protesters are saying... of course, a tax reform that increases taxes for the richest sounds way more sane to me if the idea is to fund the retirement system, but of course aiming at the status quo never works for the political class. It'd be way more palatable to see, if Macron is going to lose his job anyways for this, for him to force pass a tax increase on the 1%, cut costs on government spending, and stuff like that. But also, I can see why France would have a retirement age of 65, if that really is the only complaint for protestors. It's just weird how Macron got reelected if the major problem he had in his previous administration was exactly the protest against something he tried to do, promised to do again during campaign, and is now doing it. :P I just hope this doesn't open the doors for someone like LePen to get in power. Raising the retirement age to 65 will be nothing in comparison to that. The real danger here imho is a radical party using this argument to get in power, saying they are gonna lower the retirement age back to 62, but then also do nothing about the problem that Macron is trying to address here... it doesn't matter if you retire at 65, 62 or 50 if there is no retirement funds there. Retirement into poverty is a real thing, and is what I see in my own country everyday. Sure, our retirement age is lower than 65, but regular workers gets so little money from it that effectively most people just continue working to pay the bills. This has less to do with retirement laws, and more to do with our minimum wage that does not cover most basic necessities, but still - when retirement becomes a "on paper alone" thing, then the injustice really gets the entire population in one fell swoop... The thing is, my country is so engulfed with other political problems, scandals, threats to democratic institutions, radicalism from the far right, and lots of other major problems that I don't think raising the retirement age would even register much by the population in general. We'd have protests for sure, mostly by unions and parties from the left, but it would get nowhere close as the fever pitch that is happening in France. Again, not because it's not a serious issue, but because we have so many more crisis threatening democracy down here that it'd necessarily take a backseat.
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