Pension

Yesterday I was at a party of my mothers friend on behalf of his 65th birthday. In the Netherlands the age of 65 is the start of getting a state pension and employers pension. He still works for a postal services company.

At the party were some people I haven't seen for 15 years! One is 80 now and still eager to know everything what happens. The other is in her seventies and still cycles 5,000 kilometer a year.

In France they had strikes because of the proposal of Sarkouzy to postpone pension with 2 years. Normal pension will start at 63 in the new proposal.

In my newspaper a french woman, Hala Naoum Nehme(Politics, French university) says that according to others France is left oriented. Left because the strike-rate is high due to their conservatism to keep the social rights and their conservatism to the changing outside world.
France is left, according to them because of the French policy of protectionism and the hostile attitude of free trade and free market.
This cannot be left. This is conservatism, communism. France is ruled from Paris like a real centralized communistic country.

According to the woman above isn't true because the world in France changes too. The universities and Grand Écoles change the way the students are prepared for their work in society.
Education is internationalized and the French students come to universities abroad and other way round. That means that on the institutes English and German are also languages in which colleges are given. This makes France more accessible for foreigners. Also French students are obliged to study abroad for 1 year. Amazing.

It's strange that youngsters still are so conservative. Maybe it's a relic for the decades of protests, or did they have a revolution centuries ago that shocked the world?
Nehme concludes that future leaders of France know that the country needs to be reformed. This is in spite of the massive protests in the last weeks.
France got no way to turn back.