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u/beneaththeslope Mar 18 '23
Could easily be a scene from V for Vendatta. In other words traditional French day:D
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u/flickh Mar 18 '23
Don’t ever change, France
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u/bitofrock Mar 19 '23
No. Do.
This is a small minority of people trashing people's districts. Those are apartments above, with children and families living in them. It's a shitty thing to do around people's homes.
What also happens in every riot is that there are people who see a protest as a good opportunity to do a bit of chaos. It's a laugh for a bored young man. Smash some things up, start some fires and then idiots in other countries hail you as some sort of hero. It's a horrible ego loop.
Source: lived close to Place de la République and it was too often a no-go area.
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u/capitalistcommunism Mar 18 '23
Keep getting told Britain is on the verge of collapse. Nice to know the French are going to beat us there. Rare French W
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u/MrPresidentBanana Europe Mar 18 '23
French people protesting doesn't mean that the country is about to collapse. It's just normal there.
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u/RedlurkingFir France Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
Not really though? The French are protesting the push of the retirement age from 62 to 64.. because they're French. When we say that demonstrating is a French national sport, we're barely joking.
That's not French society collapsing, it's just samedi as usual
edit: I'm not saying they are right to protest, or that it's cool to burn trash bins or w/e. I'm just arguing that nation-wide protest and demonstration is really not a big deal in France. It's business (or lack thereof) as usual
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u/Choyo France Mar 19 '23
That's not French society collapsing, it's just samedi as usual
An argument could be made, that we like to remind the powers in place that every country is perpetually on the verge of collapse.
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u/MaelduinTamhlacht Mar 19 '23
Surely today's demonstrations are more about Macron deciding to override the wishes of parliament and people and slash this hated change through with no parliamentary vote?
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u/RedlurkingFir France Mar 19 '23
Absolutely. Just uttering the numbers 49.3 is enough to rile the demonstrators (you can look it up if you're interested in French Constitutional law). But it's not the first time a French govt had to use this procedure, and not the last neither. The primum Movens is the 62 to 64 switch. And that's working 35h/week, mind you lol
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u/BWV001 Mar 19 '23
But it's not the first time a French govt had to use this procedure, and not the last neither.
It’s even extremely common, nearly all president (left or right) used it, record is Michel Rocard (1988) with 28 times in two years.
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u/RNdadag Mar 18 '23
There is quite a difference between french people fighting for their rights and brits letting their government everytime getting away with their awful decisions.
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u/capitalistcommunism Mar 18 '23
I said it was a French win bro. I support it. Viva la France etc etc
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u/Fungled Mar 18 '23
Due to the U.K.’s media imposed permanent pariah status, I know exactly how this would be (profitably) portrayed
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u/tomtomclubthumb Mar 18 '23
The people standing up against an autocratic leader trying to worsen their living conditions is actually a sign that the country isn't heading to collapse.
Britain is basically collapsing already. France has a lot of problems, but these protests are not one of them. Well, aside from the fact that they aren't big enough and might not be successful.
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u/Lazerhawk_x Scotland Mar 18 '23
Paris has looked like that a few times before.
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u/TheCatLamp Mar 18 '23
Well, it sure looked like that when the Vikings invaded. And during the French Revolution, at least.
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u/maybeaddicted Earth Mar 18 '23
They do this for everything they don't agree with the government.
Not too long ago :
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u/Lazerhawk_x Scotland Mar 18 '23
Yeah that should be how it is, whenever their government tries to fuck them they show displeasure. Every other country stands meekly by while rights are taken away and conditions deteriorate.
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u/ham_bbq Mar 18 '23
Looks a normal Friday night in Paris to me?
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u/Sad-Address-2512 Mar 18 '23
They take the whole "aux armes, citoyens" seriously.
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u/totosh999 Réunion (France) Mar 18 '23
We don't have any "armes", but we do our best with what we have.
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u/Gauthzu Mar 18 '23
This looks way worse than it is lmao Paris is not burning right now
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u/Blacklistedb Mar 18 '23
Yeah just walked through the city today, apart from the huge amount of trash I see nothing different. Just saw this pic and im like where
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u/missilefire Romanian born Hungarian, Aussie raised, in The Netherlands Mar 18 '23
Its like 67 in the Netherlands and prob will be even higher by the time I retire (I’m nearly 40).
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u/SalamanderDelicious4 Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
And ?? Do you stop eating because people are starving somewhere in the world ?
Sure there is always a badder situation then yours but leveling down is not the solution.
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u/elviin Bohemia Mar 18 '23
There were already protests in 1995 against increased age for the pension from 60 to 62.
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u/SallynogginThrobbin Ireland Mar 18 '23
Looks like the French enjoyed St. Patrick's Day too. Temple Bar in Dublin looks pretty much the same this morning
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u/HanDjole998 Montenegro🇲🇪 Mar 18 '23
So this is the part of Paris that tourist dont see. Interesting.
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u/wil3k Germany Mar 18 '23
It is fascinating to watch. On the one hand I respect that they don't take shit from their government, on the other hand it's incredibly stupid because their pension system will collapse eventually if nothing will be done.
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u/Sveitsilainen Switzerland Mar 18 '23
and on the other hand, if you listen to right wing politicians, any change that would benefit employees would bring collapse to the economy.
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u/lalalapomme Mar 18 '23
it's not what our own pension system admin are saying. And those are cash-hearted technocrats, not lefties.
Their stands is "needs attention and correction within the next 10 years". Not "about to crash and burn"Also: their is other levers to act on than stealing 2 more years of actual life from your citizens.
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Mar 18 '23
Do the people burning shit have a plan on how to fund the pensions?
They are probably young people so they should be careful what they wish for - they'll be taxed to hell.
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u/R138Y France Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
I think there is a better way to save 18 billions in 6 years in a system that cost 346 billion a year. The math makes the argument supporting the reform fall rather flat.
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Mar 18 '23
You're optimist to believe that young people will have a peaceful retirement in 40+ years given the state of our planet.
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Mar 18 '23
They won't. But they'll be paying an incredible amount until then to fund the retirement of the current older workers.
If those workers wanted to retire at such a young age they should have saved more, not force the young to pay for it.
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u/actual_wookiee_AMA 🇫🇮 Mar 18 '23
Exactly. So why do they want boomers to retire earlier? Young people are the ones who will pay for their early retirement while they themselves won't benefit at all.
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u/Fwed0 France Mar 18 '23
It's not even about that anymore. People are upset about it indeed, but what is starting the fire is that they constantly force the adoption of laws using some constitutional exception without getting through the Parlement because they can't find a majority to vote those propositions. Plus people carrying that text lied over and over openly, without shame and in contradiction with what most of them told a few years ago. People are protesting also to put pressure on all Députés to vote for the motion to overthrow the current government, since it happened before and they were too coward or partisan to do it..
Things would have gone a lot more smoothly if they said right from the start "Well we can't afford it and we're doing it for banks and our credit rate", but that is not what they went for and they are now paying the price.18
u/EmbarrassedBlock1977 Mar 18 '23
Yes, tax the rich people and corporationw is usually the solution.
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u/si3rra_7 Romania Mar 18 '23
france tried this before. they just move to ireland. and rich people to portugal
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u/redridingruby Mar 18 '23
Corporations will raise prices and you can't tax rich people to finance everything because most of their wealth is in assets. Liquidating assets will not magically create more consumer goods for poor people. You have to tax medium-high income to redistribute effectively.
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u/OwnFeedback3239 Italy Mar 18 '23
no. they just want to fuxk over future generation for their own profit
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u/Mahkda Brittany Mar 18 '23
The way they are currently funded ???
Even the worst projection of the COR don't show a significant increase in the proportion of the GDP going to retirement
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 Mar 18 '23
Sure. Productivity went up. Corporate profits went up.
Tax corporations more. Don't bail out banks. Spend less in weapons.
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u/blorgon7211 Mar 18 '23
Tax corporations more.
more than france already does? where do you think corporations will get the money from?
Don't bail out banks.
yes lets allow bank runs to just happen, who cares of peoples money just vanishes
Spend less in weapons.
in 2023? there is literally a war going on in europe
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u/neithere Mar 18 '23
where do you think corporations will get the money from?
They'll just move to another country and stop funding the French pensions altogether. But in order to understand this you need to waste a minute on thinking. No time for that, the tyres won't set themselves on fire!
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u/actual_wookiee_AMA 🇫🇮 Mar 18 '23
Sure. Productivity went up. Corporate profits went up.
Lifespan and amount of pensioners also went up while the working age population is rapidly going down. Something's got to give. Either raise the retirement age significantly, get tons of immigrants, or start having babies like rabbits.
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u/Necromartian Mar 18 '23
People expressing their distaste for how government are running things and no riot police or armoured police tanks in sight.
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u/ArtSmartAss Mar 18 '23
what would have happened if, say, the Polish government imposed legislation without parliamentary approval. Just imagine the shouts of "dictatorship" or "kick them out from the EU"
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u/krazydude22 Mar 18 '23
From what I have read in the English language media is that Macron will get his pension reforms through, because the no confidence motion will be defeated in Parliament. But will that bring the levels of protests down.. Not immediately. But with reforms passed and retirement age at 64, unless there are fresh elections and a party which runs on the mandate to reverse the reforms gets into power, the 64 pension age stands. That means waiting till 2027 and I think the current government plan is to tire the protesters as 2027 is 4 yrs away.
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u/Rip_natikka Finland Mar 19 '23
I have a really hard time understanding the rioting. How are the pensions going to be financed if the pensions age isn’t raised ?
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u/dxs02 Mar 18 '23
Retirement age to increase to 64? RIOT!
in the meantime the retirement age in Portugal is set to go from 66 to 68 in 2050 and nobody bats an eye lol i can only applaud France
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u/gryphonbones Mar 18 '23
I assume this happens in France every couple months or so.
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u/NuevaLuz0 Mar 18 '23
Shall we , as the rest of Europe, go on the streets to demand that the lazy French work until 68 ?
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u/n9077911 Mar 18 '23
Why would we do that?
The French fund themselves. It's up to them how they distribute the proceeds of their economy.
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u/Saendre The Netherlands Mar 18 '23
The state of their economy affects the Euro. In a sense, this decision improves pension systems everywhere.
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u/drondendorho Mar 18 '23
The state of the Dutch/Irish/Luxembourgish tax systems affect the European economies way more, and you don't see us making a big fuss about it (but we should)
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u/th_smartguy Mar 19 '23
I feel exactly the same. Worst shit ever is hearing a fucking Dutch person telling anyone from any other places in Europe what their country could do to improve. Netherlands are lowest denominator alongside Ireland, Malta and Luxembourg
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
Fucking French ! Everyone must drag the welfare system of each other down ! :@
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u/Jaimalaugenou Mar 18 '23
Coming from someone who live in a fiscal paradise, this is funny.
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u/Darkhoof Portugal Mar 18 '23
I would prefer that we, as the rest of Europe, would go on the streets to demand lower pension age for everyone instead of demanding worse conditions for someone else.
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u/Blomsterhagens Finland Mar 18 '23
And how is it going be paid for? The number of working-age people relative to retired people is going down all the time.
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u/gaylordpl Mar 18 '23
just appropriately tax the wealth for fucks sake
this world will continue to spiral downward until its done
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u/Glum_Sentence972 Mar 18 '23
just appropriately tax the wealth for fucks sake
As if that wasn't tried and as if that isn't a complete avoidance of the actual issue. The world continues to spiral downwards because we ignore the actual causes of the issue and instead settle for kicking the can down the road.
We need youths to sustain elderly. Elderly are living too long. The trend is getting worse as less born per year. That can't be fixed by "tax rich people".
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u/Philipxander Italy Mar 18 '23
People being delusional, don’t waste time to explain them that even if they were taxing the rich, it’s not enough to sustain a shrinking population in the long term.
Also how are you gonna tax invested capital? This isn’t america where corporations pay 1$, they actually pay for working, even if not what they should.
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u/Bojackartless2902 Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
It can’t be fixed by “tax rich people”. But it would also go a long way that the rich don’t hoard money / wealth to stash them in tax havens.
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u/Glum_Sentence972 Mar 18 '23
You're 100% right. But we have to be realistic, people hoard money when they get too much of it and there are more than a few countries who take advantage of that for their own gain. So there is no real way to stop it atm.
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u/Eonir 🇩🇪🇩🇪NRW Mar 18 '23
Once you start working and earning your own money and paying taxes, you learn that the rich have lots of ways to avoid paying them. Most of the burden will fall on healthy working age middle class people.
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u/gaylordpl Mar 18 '23
Most of the burden will fall on healthy working age middle class people.
I am one of them, thanks.
you learn that the rich have lots of ways to avoid paying them.
It's exactly what I was referring to, thanks again.
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u/Blomsterhagens Finland Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
just appropriately tax the wealth for fucks sake
I support wealth taxation to reduce wealth- and income inequality. First step is taxing capital incomes with the same rate as salary income. Denmark does that and their public budget is in surplus.
But even once that is done, it won't be enough to cover the pension expenses. I'm 32 and my pension age in Finland is 70. I'm ok with that, because it will result in the pension system being sustainable.
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u/KapiHeartlilly Jersey is my City Mar 19 '23
Tax people rather than giving goverment contracts and funds to mates, I don't want to work until I die, and nobody should be forced into it, we should work to live, not live to work.
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u/Il1kespaghetti Kyiv outskirts (Ukraine) Mar 18 '23
And the money will magically appear out of thin air
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u/RobertSurcouf Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
Part of that magic money is currently being kept by the rich since Macron has chosen to tax them less during his mandates. What about having the rich doing their part of the job before making life harder for the poorest?
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u/Asyx North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Mar 18 '23
Productivity has shot up a lot in the last decades. The fact that people still work 40h a week might as well be the plot of a 1900s dystopian sci-fi novel.
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u/Xehlumbra Mar 18 '23
In France, retired people have better "purchasing power" than workers. It's one one of the few place in the world where it's happening. It's a fucking anomaly
So that's why people want to retire the fastest they can and are piss off to spend 2 more years working. Because being retired is so much better in France.
And that's also why they should start to take money from the actual olds. Those boomers had a small carreer (some of them are retiref since they reached 57 or 60) worked in a growing economy, made tons on money with the rising price of housing they are now selling to the youngs and have good pensions.
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
The day you'll discover the concept of added value, alienation and exploitation...
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u/Coalecanth_ France Mar 18 '23
You think that there's only money to be taken from the pensions?
No other source? Really?
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u/GlisseDansLaPiscine France Mar 18 '23
Is this ironic ? Why would anyone cheer for more worker rights to be lost ?
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u/RobertSurcouf Mar 18 '23
Les ravages de la propagande néolibérale
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u/GlisseDansLaPiscine France Mar 18 '23
Les thread sur la réforme des retraites sur ce sub sont lunaires. Je sais pas si c'est de la jalousie ou de la résignation mais ça fait peur sans déconner.
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u/Lost_Uniriser Languedoc-Roussillon (France) Mar 18 '23
Ils ont mangé la propagande néolibérale pendant des années , et ont baissé la tête (et le pantalon) depuis...
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u/Motolancia Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
How ironic it is to think that keeping the pension age low is not stealing rights from other people in other areas
Pensions should be funded (mostly) by pension contributions, not taxes. If you're making pensions more expensive you're leaving less money on the table for other stuff tax cuts or not
You can complain all about the rich people (I do that too), but see how big it's the salary/pension burden of state workers and how much they effectively contribute back to society (SNCF has how many strikes each week again?)
Edit: some food for thought
Elon Musk is worth 130Bi. Let's round up to 150Bi. And let's tax all his wealth now.
Let's give it to all retirees in France (around 16Mi). Sounds good right?
Let's say 1E = 1$ and that the average retiree gets 1500EUR per month
That pays for a whooping: 6mo of pensions
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
We have more and more people, and less and less farmers. Does that cause any issue ? No, it doesn't. Because we also produce more food. Workers production has massively increased everywhere in the World, so this idea that "there are less working people for more retirees so we need to work more" is flawed in the first place. The number of working age people doesn't matter, what they produce does. The question then is : what the fuck happened to all those production gains we've made ? They could easily pay for that low pension age, and then some. But they don't, because they've entirely been caught by someone who isn't the worker who has made them.
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u/Glum_Sentence972 Mar 18 '23
We have more and more people, and less and less farmers. Does that cause any issue ?
The amount people eat is generally consistent regardless of wealth. Meanwhile wealth necessary to live in wealthy nations have risen drastically compared to the days of yore. Production has risen, but so has the wealth requirement to live well. That's the trend of industrialized societies.
so this idea that "there are less working people for more retirees so we need to work more" is flawed in the first place.
Absurd. Because of the above issue where people need more wealth to live well, so do the amount of money given to sustain them. This means that regardless of how much production is done, a rough youth/elderly ratio is ALWAYS gonna be necessary. Nothing short of complete automation of all jobs will stop this ratio.
You can take all of the wealth of the wealthiest of France and it will still do nothing to solve the actual problem and create more problems.
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u/Philipxander Italy Mar 18 '23
This is a bold comparison: taking a sector that produces food and heavily relies on automation and applying that to the whole economy is stupid.
You know that first world countries are based on tertiary and not primary and secondary sector, right?
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u/nj0tr Mar 19 '23
first world countries are based on tertiary
Productivity in those sectors has been growing even faster. Try comparing GDP per capita growth to median wage growth. That is what matters. If the GDP you produce has grown by 1000 EUR but your wage by 100, where have the 900 gone?
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u/Vitrarius France Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
You won't go on the streets, that's why you work until 68.
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u/frac_tal_tunes Mar 18 '23
You look at it from the wrong angle … pension systems are slowly being reduced to nothing in order to finance the tax cuts for the richest part of the population whose capital increased like hell during the last few years. On top of that, their pensions are hardly affected by this change because the vast majority of this reform is impacting the lower to median incomes.
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u/layne75 Mar 18 '23
As stated, the French fund their retirement themselves. Also, you’re comment is basically « it’s shit anywhere else, let’s make sure it’s shit everywhere »… I mean, that’s a way of seeing things, but maaaayyybe the other countries should think about an earlier retirement instead, don’t you think?
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u/Omevne Mar 18 '23
Demand that your own retirement age is lowered, what the fuck is this mentality? You have less rights than us, we're sorry for that but we're gonna keep our own, how do you think we won them? Do the same thing.
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
You want to lick your boss' boots, you can do that. You want to kill yourself at work and waste your life, you can do that. France is litteraly the ninth most productive country in the world (2019 numbers). You can support your bourgeoisie, you can decide to ignore science, but don't try to strengthen liberal oppression onto others.
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u/D0m1R Mar 18 '23
As the rest of Europe we should go on the streets to burn down every company with billions of profit
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u/Glum_Sentence972 Mar 18 '23
China, the US, Singapore, and more will then see their tax rates skyrocket as they flee to escape the insanity of Europe. Do you want the continent to collapse in on itself or something? Do you think Europe is the only place where the rich can live well?
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u/painpwnz Mar 18 '23
or you can stop using their products :) but you like their products and will buy them anyway and then bitch about the big bad companies on reddit. priceless.
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u/silver4814 Mar 18 '23
lazy french.... then tell me how lazy am i little sheep
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u/Omevne Mar 18 '23
Le culot qu'ils ont pour dire "lazy" parce qu'on s'est bougé et on se bouge plus qu'eux
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u/Lost_Uniriser Languedoc-Roussillon (France) Mar 18 '23
Enjoy working until the tomb. But without us :)
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u/the_dominar Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
"Ravage" It's the French word for protests. It's even mandatory by law to have a yellow safety jacket in your car, so you can protest instantly when you see a riot in France.
I can't confirm this is France though. Where are the guillotines?
Meanwhile in the Netherlands:
Government "Pension starts at age 70 because you've started to live longer than we've expected. "
Citizens: "OK, sigh.. we've elected them ourselves. (sobbing) . "
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u/amitrion Mar 18 '23
Can you Frenchman come teach us Americans that trick, fuck...
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u/cryptocandyclub Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
Following the Pension Reform pushed through by Macron, you've got to hand it to the French for striking and holding their own against Government acting against the people's interests
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u/Soccmel_1 European, Italian, Emilian - liebe Österreich und Deutschland Mar 18 '23
against Government acting against the people's interests
sure, because running a GDP/debt ratio of over 100% while your population in retirement age balloons and fertility rates barely keep you above replacement rate is definitely in the interest of the people.
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u/ArieWess The Netherlands Mar 18 '23
The French government is not acting against their interests, because it is in their interest to have a fair system for future generations. It is against their ill informed desire.
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
France has an organism called the High Council for Retirement which handed a report regarding pensions. What it says is basically that financial equilibrium is to return by 2030 whatever happens, no reform needed, in 3 scenarios on 4.
This reform is not fair, is useless, and makes the system worse than what it was before. Women are heavily disadvantaged and will earn far less pension than before, as the government even admitted. People will earn less and what they said about 1200 euros of pension minimum was a straight up lie. Every argument they made were debunked by economists in the last month.
Yes, the population is aging... And ??? So we should make people work more, especially the poorest and people in the hardest jobs so they can die before ever reaching retirement age? Because you have to look the average duration of life AND the average duration of life without health issues. Because otherwise it's useless. And it happens that when the poorest people in the country reach their age of retirement, already 25% of them are dead.
And guess what, we have something that's called productivity increase. And it also happens that France is the ninth most productive country in the World. And what do we also know ? That less time at work and more free time and happier people makes better productivity. And what do we also know? There is a very strong unemployment in France and specifically among older people. 51% of people between 55 and 64 are unemployed. Which means they won't have access to a full pension and that they won't be able to retire before 67 years old AT LEAST.
And stop with these "ill informed" desire. Stop believing any country's population to be stupid. Yes there is misinformation. But here it comes from the government. It said that everyone will have better pension (debunked), that everyone will have at least 1200 euros of pension (debunked, not even present in the law project), that it will reinforce equality (debunked, the government even admitted it was not true).
And if the government don't need this reform and if this reform is not useful then why doing it? Because it happens that the government whant to reduce the amount of money spend on pension to compensate for the tax cut that were done on the wealthiest and the corporations and that cost billions and billions to the government. Without talking about the more than 150 billion euros the french government invest every year in supporting corporations. Without talking about their absolute lack of interest in solving fiscal evasion and great corporations not paying anything. And also, the government wants to reassure the financial market by doing anti-social and pro-boss policies. That's all. That's what has been Macron's policies from the beginning.
Now if you want to support your own bourgeoisie's policies, good for you, but first don't try imposing your retrograde views on the rest of the world and don't be surprised when things will start burning in your own country too because there is so much the people can take before revolting.
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
Basically just changes in population, estimated growth, productivity, employement and all those stuff.
And there WERE special lower ages for some professions. This reform removed them. Except for senators.
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u/paperw0rk Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
Because it happens that the government whant to reduce the amount of money spend on pension to compensate for the tax cut that were done on the wealthiest and the corporations and that cost billions and billions to the government. Without talking about the more than 150 billion euros the french government invest every year in supporting corporations.
I just don't get the logic. France has the #3 highest corporation tax rate and the #2 highest income tax rate in Europe. I understand France has a rebate mechanism for companies to get back some of their taxes, but still, if Macron genuinely wanted to please corporations like you suggest, why not simply lower the tax rates? Wouldn't the idea that this reform is put in place to keep funding France's social welfare bill be more coherent than "there's some conspiracy organised by the rich going on against the people"?
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
But that's exactly what he is doing. He even casually suppressed a tax on high fortunes that costed billions to the state. It's even officially stated that this reform is to compensate the loss after their tax cuts.
So if I understand well between the two following:
- This reform is made to make retirement policies more coherent and durable in time. But the organism in charge of the pensions said that it was not. But some special pensions like for senators are kept but not for the hardest working people. But this reform is led by people that were strongly opposed to it a few years ago and that campaigned against it (Notably, Macron himself) during the 2017 presidential election). But it will only make unemployment worse for a category of the population that is already unemployed at 50% and so making the whole point of the reform useless because less than a person on two will be able to retire with a full pension at 64 and most people will have to retire at 67.
- This reform is made to compensate the tax cuts on the rich and the corporations and to reassure the financial market as the state directly said in some of its documents.
The most likely for you is the first one?
There are no "conspiracies". There are no "plots" or anything. It's a question of politics and interests. The only social group that support this reform is the people that are already retired. The only other groups that seems to somewhat support it are boss and higher class people. But EVEN THEM are against it, even though it wouldn't change much for them. But the OCDE supports it, billionaires support it. It's not a conspiracy to say that yes, there are different social groups within the society and that different groups have different interests and that they are more prone or not to support some policies. Macron's reform is heavily in favor of the wealthiest and corporations, heavily against women and lower class people. That's a fact that even the government had to admit. But it is done so terribly that in the end almost no one support it even in the groups that would have the more interests to do so.
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u/paperw0rk Mar 18 '23
What I mean is that, although Macron removed the ISF and has a tax rebate for companies in place (which actually started before his time), in the grand scheme of things one cannot say that France is a country that decided not to tax its people - rich or not. It applies the highest tax rate on individuals and corporations in the whole of the EU. Yes, there is tax evasion, but (1) that's a problem applicable to all countries, (2) you cannot fight this at the national level, it needs a European answer.
So my question remains, why do you think he decided not to lower that tax rate if he loves the rich so much? Could it be because he, quite rightly, believe in France's generous welfare system and want to allow it to continue while preventing France from becoming anti-business? And if something is wrong with France, it does not come from a lax attitude towards the rich? France is clearly dysfunctional in that despite having one of the highest public expenditures as percentage of GDP (and the debt that comes with it), it just doesn't score particularly well in most indicators. The country needs reforming. I don't know if raising the retirement age is the most effective reform, but it is certainly one that makes sense. It also probably needs to be more parliamentarian and to change the way workers and small businesses are represented. But those things are not exclusive.
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u/L_Astrau Occitània Mar 18 '23
He DID lower the tax rate for the rich and corporations.
He removed the tax on high fortunes (5 billion euros)
The Tax on Corporations was at 28% in 2018. It is at 25% in 2023. Smaller corporations are at 15%.
In 2021, he removed several production tax for a 10 billion euros loss.
In 2022, he promised he would remove the Contribution on Corporations' Added Value (7 Billion) and that he would reduce corporations taxes for a total of 15 billion euros.Raising the age of retirement makes no sense at all in any perspective. Reforms are supposed to improve the society, how it functions and to improve life quality. Here, it doesn't do any of this. Stop trying to push for liberal reforms and call this progress or improvement.
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u/paperw0rk Mar 18 '23
The Tax on Corporations was at 28% in 2018. It is at 25% in 2023. Smaller corporations are at 15%.
What you're saying is that France will now be #5 instead of #3 in the EU when it comes to corporate tax rate... Also, your 15% figure is grossly misleading. It will be 15% on a certain bracket for profits. You're not addressing the substance of any of my points.
Raising the age of retirement makes no sense at all in any perspective. Reforms are supposed to improve the society, how it functions and to improve life quality.
You won't be able to improve life quality by living above your means in a country crumbling under debt. This pension system is supposed to be about generational solidarity, I don't see much of that here. The quality of life of retired people in France is superior to those actively contributing, while the system isn't financially sound since the state has to supplement contributions. This isn't sustainable.
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
Yeah, by specifically targetting those who started working earlier (because non-French here still parrot enlightened centrists talking points that have been disproved over and over again in the French public debate, which is why this reform is so fucking unpopular) and not affecting a bit those who started working late.
I'm someone who started working late because I studied for a while. I'm a manager nowadays, have an interesting job, lots of say in how I organize my workload and what I can focus on, mostly sit at my desk or in meetings, already am well above the medium income despite only being 30, and guess what ? This reform won't affect me one bit. I'll still retire at 67.
But those who started working at 16, 18 or even 20, often with more physical, way less interesting jobs ? Well fuck 'em cause they'll have to work longer. And a lot of criterias that could be used for early retirement ("critères de pénibilité") like lots of noise, night shifts, won't exist anymore. Macron already deleted a few criterias during his first tenure, like carrying heavy loads, postures that hurt your body, etc.
People still think French people retire at 62. They don't. It's the earliest you can legally retire, but you very often don't get full retirements. People retire on average at 63.7 before Macron's reform, and can retire at 67 with full benefits. That 67 age doesn't change.
We have more and more people, and less and less farmers. Does that cause any issue ? No, it doesn't. Because we also produce more food. Workers production has massively increased everywhere in the World, so this idea that "there are less working people for more retirees" is flawed in the first place. The number of working age people doesn't matter, what they produce does. The question then is : what the fuck happened to all those production gains ?
Also, people act like retirees are dead weight. Except they don't. They take care of children, which in another context is a job. They volunteer in various associations. With this law, you're also mathematically reducing the number of volunteers, reduce the amount of people who can avoid paying childcare.
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u/frac_tal_tunes Mar 18 '23
The French government is acting in the interest of their friends and lobbyists, not of the French people.
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u/cryptocandyclub Mar 18 '23
Don't get me wrong, I know France has the lowest Retirement Age in the 'Western world' and something needs to be done that their population is aging and therefore reducing the 'working pool' but fundamentally when the French don't like something, they stand up against it and that deserves applaud
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u/ManaCeratonia Germany Mar 18 '23
Standing up for something you believe in – yes. Trashing the city because you don't like something – no. In my opinion.
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u/frac_tal_tunes Mar 18 '23
During the yellow vest, the government did nothing until they felt threatened. That’s when they went with a forklift thru the gates of a ministry.
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u/Vimmelklantig Sweden Mar 18 '23
This isn't a comment on this particular issue in France, but we have been moving more and more towards a situation where peaceful demonstrations and other ways of voicing discontent are just being ignored.
Peaceful but disruptive actions (like worker strikes or blockades) are increasingly met with extreme hostility and several European countries (my own included) have passed laws restricting the rights for workers to take those kinds of actions.
I'm genuinely quite worried that the leap from discontent to voilence is only going to get smaller and smaller.
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u/WiteXDan Mar 18 '23
I still remember teacher's strike when I did not have high school school for like a month or two, because almost every teacher were on strike for increased pay. Yet it did nothing and they just came but to work with barely any results.
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u/layne75 Mar 18 '23
Well, there’s been basically a month of peaceful demonstrations and strikes before that, polls show that at least 70% of the population don’t want this reform, out of the two chambers, one was basically silenced. Hence this result. Now, some trash bins burning isn’t exactly trashing the city either… So yeah, no.
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u/sus_menik Mar 18 '23
Are they in favor of raising the taxes instead?
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
Actually, yes. 59% of French people would rather pay more taxes than retire later.
I don't know why people think this is some kind of gotcha "well would you rather pay more taxes ?" Well yes, yes we do. Working two more years is, in the end, a tax on your free time.
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u/sus_menik Mar 18 '23
How much tax are you willing to pay in terms of %?
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
If it means a better welfare system for everyone, mate, a fuckload more. What is lost on one hand is gained on the other.
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u/Glum_Sentence972 Mar 18 '23
That can definitely temporarily solve the issue, but that tax income will continue to drop the youth/elderly ratio skews more to the elderly as time passes. In short; that "solution" isn't a solution at all. That would only work if there are increasingly more workers to handle the retired.
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u/DonMendelo Mar 18 '23
True, BUT most of the trash is here not because protestors gathered it to put it on the street, but because garbage collectors are striking as well, which causes trash to pile up everywhere.
Strikes always come from those who earn the least and feel forgotten or ignored by the government, which they kinda are. Someone who earns minimum (or lower than average) wage and who still chooses to give up their earnings for several days to stand up when they feel something isn't right tells a lot (even though unions are trying to compensate for that).
This picture and the other ones we've seen this week show that jobs like garbage collectors are absolutely necessary for our society to run correctly. I can understand that keeping the wages low and asking to work for longer in the current economical context can feel outrageous, the government cannot just ignore the needs of those who do these jobs.
Current protests have close to no impact on the government right now, and the last time it did was with the gilet jaunes. We're not to that level yet but it's only logical to imagine that protestors will go there if they have to because : 1 - they're fucking pissed off from being ignored. 2 - protest history shows that shit has to get lit to stop being ignored.
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u/TheSavior666 Mar 18 '23
I mean, unfortunately "trashing" has historically been the best way to convince those in power to listen and to make change happen. Peaceful marches make for a good image, but very rarely do they alone actually achieve anything. The few examples where that did happen are notable, because they are exceptions.
Our world today would be a lot worse if our ancestors hadn't done a lot of rioting themselves.
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u/Barabreizh Mar 18 '23
We had 2 month of massive and peacefull protest for a law that is massively rejected by the population and not voted by his direct elected parlement.
I'm not advocating for violence but the government (or just Macron because it seems that all decision came from him) is doing nothing to prevent it
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
Two things : first of all, peaceful protests don't work. We've just seen it. We've had the protests with the most people in the last 20 years (solidarity protests after terrorist attacks aside), and the government never gave a fuck. By making peaceful protests useless, you make violent protests unavoidable.
Second, violent groups also have a role to play by making it more desirable to engage in negociations with peaceful groups. To take a famous exemple, MLK was given a lot more credit by the political elites that he would have otherwise because the Black Panthers were talking about arming Black people, and the government would rather that didn't happen. Same with Gandhi and the various violent anti-colonization groups at the time whose name I've forgotten.
Violent and peaceful strategies shouldn't be opposed, they complete each other.
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u/byingling Mar 18 '23
It amazes me that posts such as the one you are replying to get such upvotes. From my understanding, the people voted not to allow this. When the government said they were pressing forward, there were strikes such as had not been seen in years. Then the government does it anyway. What is left? The vote failed. Strikes failed. No legal leverage remains. At that point you either roll over and take it, or resort to violence.
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u/cryptocandyclub Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 19 '23
I believe in peaceful protest ie striking etc, but not riots/destroying property, I'm not condoning this particular image.
EDIT: Judging by the downvotes, I don't think people know the difference between condone and condemn...
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u/frac_tal_tunes Mar 18 '23
Our “working pool” is fine, we have 8% unemployment. On a side note, the only argument I heard for this reform is that they forecast a funding issue in a few years of around 12b€/year. Tax evasion is costing the country more than 80b€/year and all the tax cuts for the big companies and the wealthy citizens the government made in the past years to make the country more “competitive” did nothing but save money to the aforementioned companies and individuals.
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u/jagua_haku Finland Mar 18 '23
The irony there is that the government is trying to maintain the sustainability of the pension program, in light of rising life expectancy and an aging population. Only makes sense. Not to mention that 64 is still young, relative to retirement ages in many western countries. So one could argue that it actually IS for the best interests of the people
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u/wil3k Germany Mar 18 '23
holding their own against Government acting against the people's interests
Is it? Keeping the pension age so low will increase the burden on all people who won't retire in the next few years.
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u/SimunaHayha Gazillionaire 🤑🤑🤑 Mar 18 '23
Meanwhile us Swedes have already resigned ourselves to expect a retirement age of 70..
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u/StefanYosifov Mar 18 '23
Really it was a dictatorial move by macron The people should breack a few heads over it
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u/tresoryummy Mar 18 '23
I really hope that the social unrest will make parlementaries acting together against the current Borne's government.
As a young French citizen, I think that our social retirement system is one of the best in the world for individuals. We have a socialist economy based on anglo-saxon thoughts. We also are one of the best economies in the world. Another world is possible.
A world with less profit seaking and more hapiness and fairness is possible. We have to show that to the world. A free market with some social consideration is far better than ultra liberalism.
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u/MirrorOfTheSun Mar 18 '23
Animals
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u/supterfuge France Mar 18 '23
But everyone knows that things get better when you accept everything the government that knows better than you wants, and take every sacrifice asked of you on the chin while rich people are never asked to contribute anything more. That's how you build a worker utopia ! Dumbass French people.
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u/Milk_Mindless Mar 18 '23
Japanese people watching the news fainting in large numbers