67 Global News Post 2
tabar7
This newspaper article highlights the protests all across France that have been happening this month over the President’s push to raise the retirement age. The current President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has already in past years raised the retirement age from 60 to 62, and plans to do this again but raising the minimum age to 64.
Since the start of February protests have broken out across the country, often led by union workers. The fight had not slowed down, as on the first of the month there was a record of 1.2 million protestors, only followed by 1 million just this past week. While the protests remain mostly peaceful and undisruptive, there have been a few quarrels with police and some afternoon flights in Paris had to be canceled.
While action remains strong, protesters are not seeing the results that they would like. There is a threat to shut the country down at the beginning of March to force the results that they want. Their plan to remain strong in the beliefs. While there has been no official statement, President Sarkozy said to the press that he will remain strong as well.
The author offers past antidotes for why union members took on the form of protesting as action. They shared examples of when protestors changed legislation. Both in 1995 and 2006 we saw this happen, even if the bill had already gone and was accepted through parliament. They wanted to highlight that these protests aren’t for nothing.
The article offers a general overview of the protests happening in France and shows both angles of the argument. I don’t believe that there was intent to support one side more than the other, but more to share information with the public to help them understand the nature of the protest. Both sides remain standing strong in thor opinion, so it is still not certain what will happen with the minimum retirement age.