Liberalism, the only remedy for French malaise


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GRANDSTAND. The social crisis against the pension reform also expresses a fed up with state paternalism. Quick, a liberal revolution!





By Erwann Tison*

Demonstration against the pension reform, in Le Mans, on April 14.
© Jean-Francois Monier/AFP

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Ifrance is going through a social crisis whose scale is taking on unprecedented proportions. If our country has become accustomed to a certain regularity in the spontaneous appearance of protean disputes, the episode which is taking place at the moment reveals in broad daylight the great malaise which affects it: interventionism.

Postponing the retirement age to 64, an accounting solution aimed at balancing a structurally deficit system in the medium term, was the final straw of authoritarianism that broke the social vase. Anyone who listened during one of the demonstrations this year will have been struck by one thing, most of the slogans mark a refusal of the extension of working hours, felt as forced and suffered. More than a possible allergy to work, which is…




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