Today is the long-awaited day of
strikes and protests against retirement reform. So how's it going? Let's have some eyewitness reports, so we can add to the "police estimates" and "organizers' estimates" of participation our own French Politics estimates. I've often wondered whether the police derive their estimates by taking the organizers' estimates and dividing by five, or vice versa. So, given the invariably disappointing and easily inflatable/deflatable elasticity of the quantitative, let's aim for some qualitative evaluations. Do the people you talk to believe that the government has fixed its policy once and for all, or is there some flexibility? What do they think ought to be done? Do they believe reform is necessary? How do they define
pénibilité, and how should it be taken into account? Would they favor increased contributions (for all? for some?) over an increase in the retirement age? Etc. etc. The floor is open.