France

Unions stage protests against plans for retirement age hike

"On average French men retire at 58.7 years and women at 59.5, compared to an OECD average of 63.5 and 62.3, according to the body.

"It's a demographic problem. France is behind Malta as the country where we work the least," Budget Minister Francois Baroin told i-Tele."

Here is the death of another silly unviable progressive scheme. Remember when early retirement was proposed as the way to create more jobs? The socialists said that this scheme would result in full employment and better lives for all. The truth was it never really produced full employment, for most of the post 2000 years France had an unemployment rate of around 9%. It provided a good life for those lucky enough to be public employees while everyone else settled for less. Well, now that dream/scheme has fallen apart. France cannot afford the high level pensions. It's no different for Greece or California.

The progressive socialists always live in utopian fantasy where if you only believe the laws of economics or nature will move aside.