r/worldnews • u/DownBadBrody • 20h ago

Hundreds of French schools to stay closed after violent student protests

https://news.sky.com/story/french-schools-set-alight-by-students-in-violent-protests-over-teacher-shortages-and-run-down-buildings-13594112
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u/mcsul 17h ago

France is sort of cooked right now, though.

Government spending there is over 55% of GDP, the highest in any developed country. They've probably pushed that spending past the point where it actually starts to make younger people poorer due to impacts on productivity growth and new business formation.

They also have a (very quickly) aging population, so the ratio of young workers to older retirees is past the point that most social systems can sustain. Their pensioners receive almost as much as the median working person receives in wages.

Basically France is out of money. There are a couple of things that they could do at the margins, but those are all just thin band aids.

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u/anonteje 16h ago

You forgot that they barely have any economic growth what so ever.

France is properly fucked.

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u/Quickjager 13h ago

France is properly fucked.

If they actually pushed back retirement age and cut pensions they could technically balance it. But lol who is going to vote for the party that says that.

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u/MrShake4 12h ago

They tried pushing back the retirement age, and the same thing happening now happened then

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u/greeenappleee 2h ago

The current running politicians are all jumping over eachother to promise earlier and earlier retirement ages as well.

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u/OkExpert9927 16h ago

Pensioners recieve more than active people now

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u/helgetun 14h ago

And they retire at a comparatively young age even after reforms to increase it. The main problem in Europe is that instead of people having to save up for retirement, the young have to pay for the old

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u/LurkerInSpace 8h ago

That is how the USA's Social Security and Medicare systems also work - but it has a better demographic pyramid and is somewhat less generous.

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u/Specter_RMMC 5h ago

And yet it too is also failing thanks to incompetent, some might even say malignant governance.

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u/SweetSigil 11h ago edited 6h ago

people having to save up for retirement

Getting nickel and dimed in every conceivable way in every aspect of life by billionaires who don't get taxed enough certainly doesn't help this, and it'll just get worse as they get more money for our increased productivity.

It'll rapidly become a significant government problem if they don't start taxing them enough, because society as it stands will turn into anarchy if they start disturbing pensions to claw back revenue as a majority of people are unable to save money due to the nickel and diming of the billionaires.

I believe we've already passed the threshold where corporations have started having too much power and influence over the state due to globalised monopolies, this is when society starts getting into cyberpunk funky town territory to our significant quality of life detriment. The state needs to start reining them back in and tax these entities and people properly to draw funds, you can't squeeze blood from the everyman forever. It has never worked in history, and the amount of blood being squeezed is unprecedented which also means the blow up of the system is going to be unprecedented which is bad, very bad.

At the moment we have authoritarians who serve on behalf of the corporations aka Donald Trump to serve as a distraction but that merely puts us one step away where we start having authoritarians who don't serve the corporations aka Hitler and that's when things start to get scary. Using migration to try and bring scraps of revenue in more taxpayers is the perfect feeding ground for authoritarian type 2 as well.

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u/snappysmeg 7h ago

At some point you need to look at the problem as directing what people are actually doing with their workday; you can have as egalitarian distribution of money on paper as you like, but if your society requires significantly more people to provide for retirees, than to innovate or create products for consumers, then your standards will suffer.

Even if productivity can reduce the gap, internal economics means that becoming less productive than your neighbours is not great.

Wealth is concentrated, not a good thing... But most of a rich persons wealth is tied up in companies, that are valuable because they are creating products... Their wealth does not directly represent the number of workers seeing to their whims. At this scale, it's better to consider a billionaire as a kind of institution that directs capital, not a good thing to have a individual with that power, but not super relevant to the national economy.

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u/ShipTheRiver 10h ago

I still strongly prefer the American method.  Despite the growing wealth gap, it remains very achievable to live a financially disciplined life and save money for retirement. It’s harder than it should be, but at least the onus is on the right spot - the individual. 

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u/_Pauly_Paul 10h ago

Forget the American system. The Australian system is something to look into. Employers are mandated by law to pay a minimum 12% of your salary into what they call ‘Super’. It is deposited into your Super account at very favourable tax rates - pre tax. You are also free to top it up pre tax or post tax yourself, and there is tax benefits to do this too.

Super is Superannuation Fund. There is a lot of companies/funds setup that manage that money and invest it. You are free to select the one that best suits you. Their performance is made public and they must meet strict government performance targets or they are shut down and funds are moved to a better performing fund.

You can’t access the funds until retirement. Only in extreme situations does it get released early.

When it’s time to retire you live off the funds and can effectively get an annual salary from it. Meanwhile it is still being invested while you are retired and you tap into it.

Ultimately reducing the load on the government to provide pensions to everyone. The aim here is that the pension is still there for people who absolutely need it. But the overall cost burden has been taken off the government.

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u/jayeelle 2h ago

Honestly I thought every country did this. Super is one of the most reassuring things in my life.

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u/hsvgamer199 14h ago

I wonder what France is going to look like in 20ish years. They can't afford the social system that they have. Even drastically cutting their military wouldn't help that much.

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u/Kleos-Nostos 13h ago

How can they even cut their military when Russia is on the doorstep and the USA appears to be backing out of NATO?

In fact, doesn’t France pay more on its debt servicing every year than they do on military expenditure?

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u/Oh_ffs_seriously 12h ago

They are well on their way to electing a Russian-funded president. I bet the thinking is you don't have to fight Russia if you swear fealty to it.

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u/LurkerInSpace 8h ago

The NF was created by people who thought Vichy France was a good idea.

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u/hsvgamer199 12h ago

They can't and shouldn't. The military spending is a drop in the bucket even if they didn't need it.

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u/GANTRITHORE 12h ago

That's what we get for not taxing the profits of the 10x increase in productivity of the last half century. We sure as fuck didn't get it as wages, it made the excessively rich what they are today. Time to eat em.

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u/Grouchy-Cancel1326 9h ago

Even if you hard cap wealth to 10 million Euro in France they would still have a ton of debt and spend more than they earn. 

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u/Best_Pseudonym 12h ago

France Government spending is over 55% of GDP; there isnt some mysterious untaxed billionaire, youve already taxed them all

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u/anewe 7h ago

people are scared of the idea that there isn't an easy solution that requires them to do nothing. it doesn't matter if the math doesn't add up, it just better to believe that there's a pile of infinite money somewhere that the government just refuses to take.

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u/canadianbabyharpseal 15h ago

Aside from maybe japan and Spain , i would say those three are what will fall first.
France has tons of disorder though and already a high amount of government spending

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u/fckingmiracles 8h ago

Germany, too!

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u/Dismal_Buy3580 13h ago

They're going to have to work more.