I read an article the other day in the online version of “economist.com” and it talks about strikes in France, because of a pension reform. I thought you might be interested, because our class is going to France at the end of this school year.
Basically what it says is that the French president Mr. Sarkozy wants to raise the legal minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 years. The outcome was that the French were striking to prevent this law.
There are infrequent trains, absent teachers, undelivered post and unprinted newspapers, like it is on every other strike. Unfortunately this strike is already takin longer than usual strikes and the workers of all refineries, lorry drivers and school pupils joined in too. Now the government is having a big problem, because the country is running out of petrol, because of the striking oil workers.
In my opinion the strikes in France are silly and unnecessary, because the country has high debts as a result of their pension system. So they have to save money to pay the pension in the future and I don’t understand this long strikes. In Austria we can draw a pension at the age of 65, so the French should be happy with the minimum retirement age of 62.
Vocabulary:
minimum retirement age (Pensionsantrittsalter) – The minimum retirement age is 60 years.
to prevent (verhindern) – The people try to prevent a law.
draw a pension (Pension beanspruchen) – In Austria we can draw a pension at the age of 65.
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