A TV station in Toronto invited me to opine on the resistance to French pension reform. I’m sure I managed to say enough to displease people on all sides.
A TV station in Toronto invited me to opine on the resistance to French pension reform. I’m sure I managed to say enough to displease people on all sides.
3 Comments
Dear Art:
You spoke plainly as to the reasons behind Macron’s decision to use whatever means necessary to effect a reform of France’s fat pension system. and the Constitutional Court’s likely approval of the measure.
Thank you for cutting through the rhetoric concisely.
I only hope Macron does not sack Elisabeth Borne. That would be a misjudgment in my view, and only hurt the “heartless” image his opponents seek to tar him with.
Thank you for forwarding the link to your televised comments.
Thank you Mr. Goldhammer for sharing your fair-minded assessment of the conflict on Toronto TV. As France prepares for the April 6th strike day, I’ll go out on a limb and predict it will be even yet smaller than the March 28 edition which was smaller than the previous one. Some reasons: 1) in the Internet Age, attention spans are famously shorter than in 1968 and 1989; the long weekends of May 1 and May 8 are approaching and everyone wants a ready supply of fossil fuels to put in their superannuated diesel cars even as prices spike; 1000 deaths per day in Ukraine has a way of stealing the headlines and making the French protests look like a tempest in a porcelain teapot; and in the end, plenty of professional cohorts in France (fireman, Normaliens, train personnel, to name just 3) know full well that they’ll be retiring at or before 62, if they want to, with decent pensions and thus can sing “I get along without you very well” instead of the “Internationale” or “Le temps des cerises”.
ps: where the heck did Macron get that “infographie” that he showed the TV cameras on March 22 (stating that Americans can retire at age 62) ?
at minute 6:03 in this video of the interview –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwYaSZVTWNM
and why didn’t the journalists jump all over him for this mis/dis-information ?