Nobody expected this French revolution
The pensions row has turned into a referendum on Sarkozy, says Anne-Elisabeth Moutet.
Riot police officers during clashes with youths in Lyon Photo: AP
As the French Autumn of Discontent morphs into its second week (more trains, fewer planes, long lines at petrol stations, banlieues kids indulging in a bit of self-administered wealth redistribution in the streets), no one can predict how things will turn out for Nicolas Sarkozy and his embattled government. And yet this should have been the easiest reform of his first term.
The government was looking to score points for realism and for shoring up the pay-as-you-go pensions system. Instead, they have boxed themselves into the kind of standoff the French always used to call, scathingly, la politique à la Thatcher.
The Socialist opposition, hoping to energise grassroots support for their 2012 presidential campaign, encouraged their natural constituents, the teachers' and students' unions, to stoke up anti-Sarkozy resentment in schools and universities. Now they find themselves watching in dismay as the student revolt spirals out of control. If there is a single fatality in these heated confrontations, they will be branded irresponsible, and the same parents who encouraged their children to demonstrate will withdraw every ounce of goodwill and support.
Both sides were taken by surprise. Over the past months, in negotiations quietly undertaken at the Elysée Palace, union leaders had indicated that they understood the pensions quandary. On paper, simple arithmetic sums it up: in 1945, when the scheme was established, eight workers paid for the pension of one retiree. By 1960, they were down to four. Today, it's 1.8, and if nothing changes, in 15 years' time, 1.2 French workers will bear the burden of one pensioner.
The unions were prepared for the usual French face-saving social kabuki: after some pre-planned tactical retreats, a bit of symbolic give and take on implementation, a few exceptions made for women and manual labourers, the bill would have been accepted. Instead, they have been pushed into a hard line stance by their members. The CGT union's Charles Foulard, the oil-and-gas industries' answer to Arthur Scargill, is leading the blockage of Total's oil refineries; he's constantly on radio and television exclaiming that reform is unfair because the French have it too hard already.
visit site : www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8077518/Nobody-expected-this-French-revolution.html
visit site : www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8077518/Nobody-expected-this-French-revolution.html
