Trains and busses at a standstill schools and businesses closed workers in front stage one of the biggest strikes in decades derrius plan Pension Reforms to our president but proposals board and necessary or will they lead to his downfall this is inside story. Hello and welcome to the program. Strikes on protests are common in france but the biggest nationwide walkout in 24 years is posing a serious challenge to the president and his plans to overhaul the Pension System. Public Sector Workers are working to strike until christmas and beyond 90 percent of Rail Services are canceled hundreds of flights are grounded schools and Tourist Attractions are shut president in well mark ross says his reforms are long overdue with people fear theyll be forced to work longer and get less money when they retire or the polls show 7 out of 10 people want changes of the Pension System a similar number also support the strikes with the strongest backing coming from young people not us a butler has more from paris. Not only as passionate about his job producing bread and pastries in his bakery outside paris but after working for more than 40 years hes looking forward to retiring he hopes the french governments plans to reform the Pension System wont affect his future and he understands why so many people oppose them immediately. The ideal would be defined a system thats fair for everyone its a big ask some people were hired with certain benefits and now theyre being told those advantages could be taken away. In france the Pension Systems complicated each profession has a different scheme some people fear losing certain advantages or having their pensions reduced under the governments proposed reforms others say the system must be simplified. I think Pension Systems need to be reformed its not acceptable that there are so many schemes i think france has needed reforms for a while theyre not done because theres a lack of courage and people take to the streets immediately reforming the Pension System was one of Emanuel Marcos Campaign Promises he says it needs to be streamlined to make it fairer and save public money but past president s have tried to reform it and failed. In 1995 president Jacques Chiracs government scrapped its reform plans on. The 3 weeks of nationwide strikes in 2007 president Nicolas Sarkozy push through some changes but not without public protest macross plans faced opposition from many sections of society including transport workers who threatened rolling strikes or objection the ideal would be to find a system thats fair for everyone its a big ask some people were hired with certain benefits and now theyre being told those advantages could be taken away this analyst says the president faces his biggest test yet. Theres a risk that all the sectors joining in health transport lawyers university then the government could fall i dont think that we are at that point yet but the government certainly cant back down because it would be a political failure. And mcconnell has already passed several controversial reforms and although he may feel confident after surviving months of yellow vest protests social discontent still lingers Natasha Butler aljazeera paris. Lets bring in our guests laura sliman e is a city councilor eroei and she was at one of the demonstrations and joins us by skype in london philip malia professor french and european politics a University College london also by skype from some a law just rely on Syria Research fellow of the Global Policy institute a specialist in french Economic Policy welcome to all of you laura why are people in france furious with the reforms of the retirement scheme that mckown wants to put into place well i think theres different factors to the fact that they are angry but i was just a moment station this morning in a while and it was massive ive never seen ive never seen this in my city and i think a lot of all that to this where theyre said the same so its clearly a historic moment and i think this is because this for 4 hours the ball is not clear so the government is not really saying what theyre what they want to do with their pensions but some of the things they say are very very worrying that one of them being that they want to move from the Current System to a point system which means that one day of where it will be worth the same for everybody which actually is not reassuring many people because it will have consequences like bigger consequences and bad consequences for people who have precarious jobs people who work hard times that she women people who are experiencing a lot of. Joblessness and we know that in france it is a big issue especially in the popular areas in the suburban areas. So i think this is one of the problem the other one is that they say they want to cap the spending of the Pension System to 40 percent of the heat and now with you know if you consider the fact that the growth their growth rates are not going to be big enough to compensate. It for the increase in the amount of people in pensions in the system in the next decade. Means automatically that pensions will dry up so people know this and this is where theyre going philip and heres the thing you ask a french people about the need to reform the Pension Scheme and they would tell you yes we would like it to change but then when it comes to this particular the reform the are fairly skeptical very conservative think that this is something that could affect their daily lives has president failed in a way or another to explain his plan for the french people. Well im not quite sure the for people who are so keen on having any further change the Pension System i think theres been several attempts and i think one successful years ago to do that and i think its always been in the direction of making you know making retiring age order with less benefits in the end so i think people know that and they are not only angry with reform and i think as last said just said people will lose quite a lot on that they will have to work from until the age of 64 as opposed to 62 right now to get full pension and also they were less in return for that so they are angry for that rightly so but also the fear that they feel that the reform altogether is not fair you know a fairness is important think france is a very wealthy country terms of g. D. P. And it seems that money is available its just the government should think of restricting that money in a better way and thinking of pensions 1st pensions are very important for people once youve worked all your life you ought to retire at the sort of a relatively early age to benefit from the rest of your life and enjoy it and i think its a very important point which is which is very often overlooked john fund says a wealthy nation but however economists will tell you that if the situation goes as it is now there will be a deficit in the Pension System in the near future therefore its about time to change the whole system. Yes france is of a winfrey country with the dead to vote on 2 other percent of its g. D. P. And one thing that could have got to move the region indeed up to the reform is the corrie boat. Committee which is who are looking at the evolution of tensions and which mentioned that by 2025 there would be a very big diff is it and some measures need to be taken urgently you know the 2 buttons 2 by 2025 who has 2085 is a story in which the new scheme to systemic reform should take place and the problem is that this confusion between 2 reforms at the same time 1. 00 to 1. 00 wants to go gently and the other one is about to just if you should of changing over warning provided to the differential Pension System from the need of 76 percent of french people are fake that the system needs to be ok. At this indictment 70 percent say theyre back to movement and the reason why there is such an citee is because this reform isnt been clearly explained the government hasnt managed to convince the people that it would be reform to make the system fairer and where most people will not reduce and you havent faced people think that by a pig in a book they dont know exactly what theyll get for it and you have some professions were rightly concerned about the future of pensions especially because its beyond youre a were because you have the teachers whose pensions were based on. Their fine or 6 months or Public Servants based on the final 6 months of the career competitive 5 years on a system so with the paramedics or that its all or if they were directed to account ok order which is thats why the government just of that trying to calm things down announced that they pretty crease wages for teachers that there was no as that came to late laura is this something that people are ready and willing to compromise on in the near future to move forward or do you think this is a red line for the majority of the french people i think this is a red line because our Pension System is also historically very important to french people we shouldnt forget that is france Social Security system including the Pension System is an inheritance of that resistance National Council after the 2nd world war its a very very Strong Social compromise and fronts a knot of people lean on it a lot of people count on it so its a very strong cultural thing and i think the government is making huge mistake in Going Forward with this reform and we will ask for the reform to be taken taken away and i just want to say one word about what. Touched on earlier that that Wealth Distribution society i mean the previous speaker said that we should balance the books yesterday on why is it always the responsibility of the same people to. Balance the books ringback where is the contribution the increased contribution of stakeholders of Big Big Companies shareholders and become phonies whose revenues whose income have has had skyrocketed over the past few years in france and all of it well when do we stop dropping the contributions of Company Owners of employers which have continuously dropped over the past years into our Social Security does that mean a gap in the Social Security system which is not the fault of people who work all their life work all their life these people deserve their pensions and ok unfair that is the same day that day the price for reach people to get richer philip why is it difficult for the government to sell its proposal one if it all comes out from the need to simplify things so theyre basically saying that france has a 4 to 2 regimes and they would like to make it universal simplified one regime of benson for all the friends people visit in it in theory should build in principle should be a very good thing for the french people. Well in theory i agree with you to simplify a sort of rather complex Pension System 42 different regimes you say yes to one to merge it into one seems like a fantastic idea the trouble is that is by the end of it people feel or are actually ripped off of course if it can be seen as a good idea so thats where people will be looking at precisely and i think this is where my core is in my view failing politically if you look at the reaction amongst its its own political Parliamentary Group and amongst it isnt party left off amash i think youre realise i could become our story you realise that theres very little support people are very look warm in his own party about this reform because they feel that deep down it is touching upon very sensitive matters you know as a law said earlier its about the right to for people to retire sort of normal a decent age when youre not about to drop dead and then enjoy your retirement and also get the means to to leave that retirement i think is really upsetting that and of course its also in another point coming at the end of the line of a number of reforms which are all gone the same direction you know taking from the sort of the little middle classes or working classes i think then to met the sort of the effort to balance the books whereas you know if you really want to do that balancing the books probably should review the tax system in france which will give the answer jack what kind of impact does the fortitude regime have on the french economy. Thats very difficult to assert a bit less into the Pension System accounts fall the pension it is a council 14 percent of the cheapie and the government would like to maintain that proportion there would not like to do pension costs of pension during crease beyond 40 percent so that would require a death means that they could be should draw a lot but does one big problem with pension not going to mention that it was treated everyone loves them and a french Pension System she is quite generous but its the forget that when it was created there were 3. 8 workers for one pensioner now we have a situation with this 1. 5 work pension 80 were getting them because of appreciation Frank Stewart dick said and as a system that we have we have an appropriation week with their august surviving Life Expectancy in europe and that as a cost to save dime into the main thing at the heart of the desired result is the for get your some unions are in favor of such a reform for example to Biggest Union from just see if she is not backing described the right way workers of the city are backing to strike because they were because we deduce thats for sure that different it reserves different great fuses all the rest nobody knows exactly until we see the food outline of to be there but the unions want to preserve the system or so because they manage it they could manage it does one particular job the frontal system of 6 or security and pensions managed and the other so want to balance to book in their own not just in 2025 but to make sure that the board but did in france have a system which is. Well the workers of today finest eventually as of today of the Computers System is the only way to preserve the system which is not a good potus young. Not based on a company that is asian we have other issues to come here nora why should people be concerned when the government has been all over the last few months. Offering some concessions but it when it comes to the equilibrium retirement at 64. 00 where you get the full pension and also the minimum amount of fence and set at 85 percent of the minimum wage i mean its not clear at all what content concessions theyve made we still havent seen what the project actually is but they did say that that the spending would be limited to 14 percent of the g. D. P. Now im not a mathematician but this means given the fact that we will have more pension years in the future that we do have today this means that pensions will be lower now thats the problem and the previous speaker was saying that we needed basically 2 to find well to we needed to lower pensions that we needed to find a solution and that was not another solution than the current one Production Team about the government there is a current solution that is never put on the table by the government or by any government previously which is to find new resources its true theres less workers financing the financing that the pension the Pension System today than there was in the past through the dead that for as never been so Rich Companies have never created so much wealth then they do today so wealth is there we just need to take a where it is and im sorry but its not its not possible that companies that shareholders that capital still doesnt contribute to the system if they have to contribute to the system Big Companies have to contribute to the point and they do it is where the fair reform would be philip and others would argue that the biggest problem is that the french themselves are not willing to step out of their comfort zone theyre used to a generous public uncertain scheme and for them to try Something Different like in different parts of the world where you have private and independent person schemes thats where the freakout. Well you would have to define for us what you call comfort zone and im not sure that pensions which are around 1000 euros a hour work between 10011500 euros amounts are really very comfortable the pensions this is really what you need to live and so really its its again a nice year which is about the sort of its a civilisation its you let me use a very very strong expression there and i think the french are also defending the fact that after working you know over 30 years. And hard work you should really be in a position to enjoy your retirement and do it not in poverty as it is the case in a number of countries in europe in the world but you know have benefits from the system in which you can leave decently and i think if you compare the situations in europe i think its very telling france has its Better Process a better country in europe at the moment to retire you know if youre if you retard you all you better be in france rather than say in the u. K. For instance where it is much harder exactly for that reason people have set up in the past france after the 2nd world war and later on in the unions and workers have defended the system and the reason because in the end you can enjoy that and also you dont live in poverty. Briefly pleased if you dont mind what would be the political price. Mccrone would have to pay if. He decides to abandon the reform i dont think that michael kind of thought the reform because that would be as you say big a big pretty good price it was addictive to be a reformer under french law the reforms they all say are you know we need to reform our country until the debt thinks that and then they dont want to reform anymore but again that case. He we im sure will make some concessions he has to do a main concern for him would be the state of the public Sector Workers as people are stuff especially teachers to reassure to make them make concision they already have and not some compromises we know to into reform one of the things i do police will be and a new farm hand them or is be say that they will be able to leave. The rest ok theyve been told that differentials would increase because their wages would increase during decorator and not at the moment to just have good pensions and now as you wages with the new proposals made by the government that would have better wages and equivalent pensions thats what they would try to do to diffuse the situation and wed see the real debate would stop when theyre announced next week when to announce next week. Or time to precise outline of the oldest game ok laura is it earlier this stage to tell whether the strike will continue for quite some time like in 1905 or that the momentum with start to fade away if the government offers will concessions its very unlikely to predict anything regarding the movement and but i think our new year i am very very impressed with the number of people number of people who are in a while this morning and and its been the same in all of the cities in france i think there were 450. Demonstrations in france and the one in paris is currently going on i think its massive so i think its definitely. A very strong start for the mobilization which is showing well 1st of all how much attached the french people are to their Pension System but also i think this is also lets am all together a resentment that has spilled out against this government which is clearly not understanding the level of social inequalities in france the level of. You know of discontent with these policies with the policies that the government the socalled reforms that the government is pushing for we always go into which always produce more precarious ness for the people who are already precarious and which continues to reinforce or to increase the income of the wealthiest of the population i think the government really hasnt understood the extent of the anger on the streets there and you see that the moment that this is also going to roll these people also play a role in their continuing of the movement or not philip when you see the anger on the streets. And if it were to philip the Prime Minister finds himself in the same position the forced to pay 9095. 00 to abandon the Pension Scheme could it be an indication that michael may not be able to secure a 2nd term as president. It could be a turning point because im quite happy you mentioned the 1905 precedent because then under the Jacques Chirac presidency that then Prime Minister and should be tried exactly in overall the pensions to skim it completely backfired and started off in the Public Sector but then spread over and even by proxy a lot of people couldnt afford it and there if you like to go on strike did support the strike eventually she had to read through the plan this all the National Assembly and call for an early election is completely backfired because it brought the socialists the left to power and he lost that election so were not there yet its only day but i think that yes he chose 2 things the house sensitive any reform to the Pension System system is in france and rightly so its so important we discuss that and also that mark or doing that at the moment at a time where it is quite unpopular. Number of in popular reforms and also surfing on a wave of the universe movement you know a lot of protests going on in france i think yes it could backfire again and then if it were the case that would seriously we back Philip Marlowe your last limited jackal and i enjoyed talking to you about this particular issue which is turning to be a thorny topic for president in a well michel and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website or dot com for further discussion go to our Facebook Page that space work dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our 100 is a j inside story from me hashem to help others and the whole team here in doha by for now. I. With. Ancient embryos to communist leaders. Age old philosophies and the rule of order remain central to the worlds oldest living civilization. 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