France paralysed by biggest strikes in years

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

3 minutes ago, VenusHolland said:

People have to do so... it is the only way. Before it used to work. But nowadays, journalists and governments try to put people against each others in order to make people feel annoyed by the strike. But the main thing is that it is not working at all outside of Paris. People support the movement everywhere except in Paris.

After Brexit there WILL be a Frexit. Mark my words.

[Vergil 2,296]

19 hours ago, Spooky Needles said:

what are you ashamed of??? people protesting the selfish policies of the government?? and police brutality?

I hope the strikes go on for months and months, you have such a slave mentality it hurts. Macron WANTS us to shut up, bow our backs and go to work. We're not going to take his ****, and it's me who's ashamed of people like YOU. My country is great.

drag ha

OT: op must be really rich or just brainwashed, I'm from spain and totally support protesters, so you don't have to worry about foreigners

[elijahfan 27,484]

15 hours ago, chiuga said:

I said similar not same

Not even similar.

[ltlmnstr 2,771]

11 hours ago, Economy said:

When I said some ppl from the far left consider anything not fully to their opinion they tent to be aggressive about it... He mostly denied their existence so I was giving an example of what I meant

How freaking rude 

Just assume @adterp is Far Left because they don’t want to read your comments

 

[Economy 52,859]

1 minute ago, ltlmnstr said:

How freaking rude 

Just assume @adterp is Far Left because they don’t want to read your comments

 

It's not just that he didn't wanna read it (and comment on what he didn't read btw which was rude right there)

 

He's making references to my past comments...

 

If he's accusing my comments that usually comment on both left and right wing politics (it's usually a pretty neutral stance taking both sides into account).... If he calls that conservative ranting I don't see how he can't be far left

 

But ur right about that part. I could be wrong about that and shouldn't assume

 

But seriously... He's making the same assumptions about me just in the opposite light

[Guillaume Hamon 6,992]

18 hours ago, GagaInTheZone said:

I will never understand why people go on strikes when that mostly affects citizens (the transport of people trying to go to work in this case) and not the government itself..

If you just protest without bothering anyone the government don't see a need to address your points... 

So they do something that make the situation messy cause if they don't, that will have the same results as doing nothing.  

[Guillaume Hamon 6,992]

21 hours ago, corvus albus said:

You need to understand that France isn't able to live like that forever. 

Actually the future big deficit from the french retirement system could very well be payed by stopping the annual HUGE waste from the french public spending... Yet the current government don't go very far in this direction and asked french people to fix the issue by bringing more money with unwanted reforms... 

Meanwhile billions of public money are lost with stuffs people don't even want and massive subsidies to companies that are supposed to create jobs but don't create much of these since it's mainly swallowed by shareholders...  No wonders why many french people don't really like their government "method".

21 hours ago, corvus albus said:

The debt of France is 98,4% of its GDP which is poisonous for a state.

The problem is they scare people by saying "The deficit of this system gonna be billions of euros! You have to suck it up and accept our reforms cause it's absolutely unsustainable!!" then you see them wasting even bigger amounts of OUR taxes money during the term... 

How do you want french people to accept the irony/ scam behind these super alarming speeches used to make them get afraid and accept ?  You came in this thread with a dismissive comment saying "YET that's still too much for french people" while ignoring that these people just try to get the fairest system and are right to do so.

22 hours ago, corvus albus said:

The German Gini index is better than the French and way better than the UK index. Gini index shows the equality in income and wealth. 

You said that to answer to @adterp telling you about the importance of avoiding bad living conditions but isn't checking the poverty rate of a country the best way to check its living conditions quality? If we check the poverty rates France has a lower one than Germany.

Just to sum up, the average french person often voted for presidents who promise to change many things so it's not that they're against reforming, the opposite actually. They just don't want to be the only ones making efforts while others look them doing so ( and eventually get more from the state in the meantime ) and also that they're careful with avoiding a rise in poverty when it clearly could be avoided.

[Florian 20,017]

On 12/12/2019 at 12:47 PM, corvus albus said:

Check your economic future and tell me, with a straight face, that your system can still work in 20 years because it won't. You'll collapse under your gigantic bureaucracy and debt while demanding even more. Germany prevented this for themselves but you seem to prefer throwing yourself into abyss. 

You act like German reforms are the holy grail or something and trying to comparé two situations that are completely different. 

Maybe Germany strenghened its economy but at what cost ?

Never would I want the unstability of the German working market for my country. Trying to hide the poverty, precarity  and the unemployment rate with those mini jobs.

The German demographic (especially the natality rate) is highly alarming and will cause way more harm than a "half-assed french reform".  A huge part of your economy is based on the automobile market which is declining and your lack of investment for the future will also become problematic sooner or later.

So yeah, let's see in 20 years which system will work better.

Economy isn't everything and social condition and worker rights have a huge positive impact on both well-being and productivity. There is a reason why France is still one of the most attractive and productive country in Europe despite our less-flexible working market and worker-protective policies

22 hours ago, Lord Temptation said:

Europeans? I’ve never heard of any Europeans refer to themselves as such. I’m sorry to burst your bubble hun but the EU is a failed state.

Your circle of european friend must be really narrow.

Of course we will first tell you we are French, German, Greek, Swedish or Polish because that's our nationalities. However ask anyone if they feel European and they'll answer yes with a vast majority.

22 hours ago, Lord Temptation said:

After Brexit there WILL be a Frexit. Mark my words.

You're so out of touch with reality  It's time to stop reading alt-right twitter and start to get knowledge about what France is and what French people really believe in before making statements that makes you look like a fool.

[MonsterOfSpain 8,331]

On 12/12/2019 at 3:27 PM, Lord Temptation said:

Europeans? I’ve never heard of any Europeans refer to themselves as such. I’m sorry to burst your bubble hun but the EU is a failed state. It’s the reason why illegal immigration, racism, rape, murder, hate crimes, Islamophobia and such things are at an all time high: The EU was invented by greed. Sure America has problems, but it also is the worlds centre of scientific technonologicsl engineering manufacturing (STEM) solutions and has record low unemployment and a record high stock market.

Do you even know what an state is? Omg your whole post is an embarrassment... Anyways us Europeans (yes I refer to myself as an European all the time, what's good) stay winning while enjoying the highest standards of living any group of people in the world ever had. And that's not even my quote...

 

[Lord Temptation 11,209]

30 minutes ago, Florian said:

You act like German reforms are the holy grail or something and trying to comparé two situations that are completely different. 

Maybe Germany strenghened its economy but at what cost ?

Never would I want the unstability of the German working market for my country. Trying to hide the poverty, precarity  and the unemployment rate with those mini jobs.

The German demographic (especially the natality rate) is highly alarming and will cause way more harm than a "half-assed french reform".  A huge part of your economy is based on the automobile market which is declining and your lack of investment for the future will also become problematic sooner or later.

So yeah, let's see in 20 years which system will work better.

Economy isn't everything and social condition and worker rights have a huge positive impact on both well-being and productivity. There is a reason why France is still one of the most attractive and productive country in Europe despite our less-flexible working market and worker-protective policies

Your circle of european friend must be really narrow.

Of course we will first tell you we are French, German, Greek, Swedish or Polish because that's our nationalities. However ask anyone if they feel European and they'll answer yes with a vast majority.

You're so out of touch with reality  It's time to stop reading alt-right twitter and start to get knowledge about what France is and what French people really believe in before making statements that makes you look like a fool.

 

21 minutes ago, MonsterOfSpain said:

Do you even know what an state is? Omg your whole post is an embarrassment... Anyways us Europeans (yes I refer to myself as an European all the time, what's good) stay winning while enjoying the highest standards of living any group of people in the world ever had. And that's not even my quote...

 

The EU is a wannabe United States of Europe but is more like a B-grade Soviet Union. No wonder the UK is leaving. The EU house of cards is looking shaky sistrens 

[aphrodisease 231]

I live in the French Caribbean. No signs of the strike here, I'm glad tho :-)

[JazzGa 14,652]

Why are the transportation workers striking? They probably have a good reason and it looks like the strike is working perfectly. 

[Florian 20,017]

1 hour ago, the Devil of Pop said:

Why are the transportation workers striking? They probably have a good reason and it looks like the strike is working perfectly. 

The French government is trying to reform the pension system (a much needed reform in my opinion). However, they have been very unclear about the whole thing, how it will work, how dependent to the future policies and economy it would be etc. And this lack of clarity has created a big mistrust in that reform. (Hence why most people are striking).

This reform is also meant to make what we call the "special schemes" disappear. Basically it's some advantages that some professions earned at some point in the history. For example, the transportation workers of the public sector could retire wayyy earlier than the employees of the private sector. This advantages were needed at some point for different reasons but don't really make sense nowadays and just create inequalities and costs for everyone.

So many people benefiting from these special schemes are trying to defend what they currently have (that's quite selfish imo but that's another discussion). And that's why the transportation workers' strike are that big. They're the ones who have one of the most advantagous scheme in France and they're historically very active when it comes to striking.

[JazzGa 14,652]

11 minutes ago, Florian said:

The French government is trying to reform the pension system (a much needed reform in my opinion). However, they have been very unclear about the whole thing, how it will work, how dependent to the future policies and economy it would be etc. And this lack of clarity has created a big mistrust in that reform. (Hence why most people are striking).

This reform is also meant to make what we call the "special schemes" disappear. Basically it's some advantages that some professions earned at some point in the history. For example, the transportation workers of the public sector could retire wayyy earlier than the employees of the private sector. This advantages were needed at some point for different reasons but don't really make sense nowadays and just create inequalities and costs for everyone.

So many people benefiting from these special schemes are trying to defend what they currently have (that's quite selfish imo but that's another discussion). And that's why the transportation workers' strike are that big. They're the ones who have one of the most advantagous scheme in France and they're historically very active when it comes to striking.

Thanks for the great comment! Generally I believe in the power of organized labor and collective bargaining but you have provided more context and now I'm not so sure the strike is worth supporting

[Henri Bardot 3,990]

On 12/11/2019 at 7:56 PM, ViviLittleM said:

Paris isn’t the whole France..........

still, i live in luxembourg where aroun 100 000 frenchies come to work every week day and many of them take the train.

the train that goes to france has been cancelled for a few days, and luxembourgish trains going near the french border have been PACKED for a few days. 

today the were still cancelled