Opinion: What is Happening in France?

Whoever has visited France these days, would have suffered the near-total paralysis that affected all kinds of trasportations, but also the institutions in the town.

This is due to the continued strikes against the reform of the pension system in France, where unions and strikers how to pressure the government to accept their demands and stop the "comprehensive system" of retirement that will come into effect starting from 2025, and would replace, by then, 42 private pension systems currently in place.

I do not think that these strikes will stop, but will rather get more frequent waves of protests in a matter that concerns adults and young people because everyone is concerned with retirement and everyone thinks about the day when they will get old and stop working.

Also, the phenomenon of demonstrations and strikes in this way is a French style phenomenon, that no other European country makes.

What is surprising is that the demonstrations and strikes are taking place even before this comprehensive system reform gets published, as their clauses and regulations are not even known, nor its positive or negative effects to citizens !!!

And when these demonstrations gets widened, the transportation stops in Paris, and it becomes difficult to move from one city to another, and foreigners remain in hotels and airports at a loss; universities and educational institutions get closed, international forums are called off and it takes foreigners to spend too much to cancel plans and change leaving dates.

All successive governments ignore a fundamental reform of the contracting system because it is a sensitive issue and because they are aware that it will open the gates of hell, especially if it is close to the elections, and we remember the demonstrations and social movements over retirement in 1995, 2003 and 2010.

For the young French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has made France's "stagnant water change" a target of his rule, the coming days seem decisive and even dangerous for the political future of his party.

The government is taking a risk in an already tense social context, with yellow-vests protesters' movements, continuous for more than a year, but also  a general discontent among students, railway workers, the police, firefighters, professors, and farmers ... However, this strike carried to the streets its share of tensions and difficulties, especially among users of joint transportation in the Paris region.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe promised that he would soon introduce "the entire government project." He also stressed that he is not "in confrontation" (with people).

One influential labour union said "The timetable has turned upside down, but nothing has changed in terms of the government's goal, which is to break our rigid pension system to replace it with an inpidual system in which every worker will lose."

Two years ago, we wrote that for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, neither the left nor the right reached the second round of the presidential elections, which knew intensive international media coverage.

The New centrist party, led by France's Macron who worked as an advisor for former Presodent Froncois Holand in the Elysee Palace before he appointed him Minister of Finance, and before he turned literally and intelligently against the deep French state ...

Then, as was expected, the far-right party led by Mrs. Le Pen reached the second round of the elections, and it is feeding at the expense of the fierce attacks against Muslims and its extremist convictions to close the borders with Europe and preventing the arrival of immigrants.

These two approaches reached the second round, then Mr. Macron, now seated on the throne of the Elysee, won, and neither the right nor the left came to power because the French people no longer trusted them, their ideas, or their ideology , and made the most recent surprise in the history of the Fifth Republic and in the fate of the national state.

 Then what is important from this example, is that the question of trust is one of the determinants that characterize the path of forming the state and institutions .... While the political societies in France are different from one country to another, the extent of their cohesion and strength to respond to strong winds lie first and foremost in trust.

I am certain that the lack of this trust will affect everyone in France, which foreshadows a complex public political field in the country ...

Contributed by Yassmine Elsayed