Mass protests have been shaking the street of France where hundreds of thousands of the French population show their anger and frustration over the new pension bill.
The new pension bill states that retirement age rises from 60 to 62 by middle of November. The senate has passed the bill by 177 against 151 votes, over to the National Assembly and it’s believed it will pass on. After that the bill will only have to face legal challenges before President Nicolas Sarkozy will sign it next month.
The French population is not happy about this and says it will specially affect women’s and their future pension. In all this chaos President Nicolas Sarkozy still struggles to push through the reform that has become the key battle of his first term, but hopes to be re-elected in 2012.
But why are the French so angry, some even go to say "Are they so lazy that they can't work up to the age of 62, that's younger than in most European countries." But it's not laziness it's the fear of not getting a full pension.
The law say that if you want a full pension you must work and have paid social security contribution for minimum of 40 years, with those new laws the social security contribution will be pushed back from from 40 to 41 and three months by 2013.
That means that if a worker suffers periods of unemployment, injury or maternity during adult life and will then be unable to meet the 41 year requirement, he or she will not receive a full pension until 67, up from 65.
It's also a big factor for this that those who are not in government jobs or related to them do not have written employment contract, so the could lose their job if the become to old and slow for their supervisor.
It's obvious that the French people are not happy and will probably be protesting to the end of this, trains and buses are lying down it's a nationwide strike. Maybe the government should start on fixing employment contracts before focusing on their new pension bill.
Sources BBC, and Expatica.
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