I admire the French. They can't win a war but they know how to stand up for themselves. Those dirty-politicians can't mess with the French. Normally, it is the politicians giving their constituents a tongue lashing; for the French it is the other way around.

This is incredibly insulting article. Perhaps, I have no business expecting RT --- being run by elites themselves --- have any notion how deeply disturbing such musing are. The life is not a reality TV show. And the "democracy", whatever it stands for these days, is not a guarantor of freedom to the people. It is no longer even a guarantor of the rule of law, or protection from being legally robbed. How can you, should I say dare, accuse French people of hating "work", of not putting a minute more into working then what is legally required? How can you insinuate that students are in it just because their nefarious teachers encourage them, or are in it just for fun? First and foremost, we are NOT talking of ENTITLEMENTS. These are not the benefits that the royalty has bestowed on people, and has all the rights to take away. No, these are EARNED benefits --- earned every bit if not more then trust funds that are given to babies of the rich. French people earned their favorable work conditions, their vacations, their retirements and health care. Every bit has been earned. Now that the banking elites have SPECULATED in the international FINANCIAL CASINO, they want to cut working people's 'ENTITLEMENTS'!!! The money will first have to come from the bloated EU bureucracy, idiotic bailouts of banks, insane military industry profits, and prevention of further financial gambling that allows betting AGAINST their clients, and makes money on their bankrupcy. Banks made more money on FORECLOSURES, then they would by getting regular mortgage payments. Credit default swaps continue to create the black hole in finances --- huge profits to some, and disaster to many. French people are EDUCATED, and know that they are robbed. In US, nobody said anything when it was announced that Social Security will not get a penny increase next year. Of course, people have been conditioned to be robbed.

As I explained in an other comment; Sarkozy is a damn lier. The whole affair has nothing to do with age. It is a matter of financing. Which cannot be done when, under that creep and his MEDEF friends (his brther was one of the big boss of that industrialists syndicat) most managers delocalised our main industrial power. Then, after abusing the French workforce they went to do the same to emerging countries (including Russia). This operation was made to increase productivity and profits for those bosses, their bankers and stocks' holders. Of the French workers, nobody care; they just lose their jobs and compromise their sons and daughters' employment. There is two ways to solve that problem: 1) Make those profiteers pay for the retirement's benefits and the unemployment. Tax at a maximum their products when sold in France. (This include Sarkozy whose life's goal is to become a billionaire). 2) Repatriate the work in France. In the present time, this is unacceptable to that mafia. Unfortunately it could lead to a violent revolution and we have no way to remove those incompetents until 2012 ! Nobody has yet mentioned what I wrote to RT. I sent similar comments to different French media. Every time it disappear before the end or I receive that comment: serveur introuvable (impossible to locate Orange or the media connector. I call this: sournoise censure)... Sorry Future French Generations; your AVENIR with such idiots is in deep troubles. Sincerely... Jean-Claude Meslin

France also has 39 of the Fortune Global 500 largest World Corporations compared to just 29 in the UK, 11 in Italy, 10 in Spain, 7 in Russia or even 37 in mighty Germany... So the French also work a lot.

French people worked hard, paid their taxes all working life and more importantly, made continuous contributions towards their retirement. The funds that should be available to them had been used, and now they have to pay price (the interest rate) on top of what has been spent by the government. Pretty much the same throughout Europe. Why to 'dramatise' obvious discontent by reference to the French lifestyle? It's too far fetched and in a spirit of appalling journalism.

October 22, 2010, 20:16, Bianca wrote > This is incredibly insulting article. etc etc I agree with you Bianca. It is fascinating to me that RT's bosses have decided to "rubbish" the French strikes. Less surprising, but equally perplexing, this article is yet another example of opinion being presented with news articles. Though sometimes it is hard to tell the idfference anyway :-)

French people keep on fighting! I wish Portuguese people could make manifestations like you can. Instead, most people here goes around with some sticks with words on it for a day and then just shut up until the end of the month. The world must realise, like french people do, that they must work to make a living and not the other way around. We are humans not slaves. Soon, people here in PT will work until they are 67, many of them will die before even reaching the retiring age, what's the point of that???? we born, we work we die? stupid money....

Mr Robert Bridge. I address this comment directly to you. You should not write on something from which you know nothing about. When I sent my first comment on your topic, I did not have ridden it fully. The French government through its puppets: police & prefectures said that there were between 80000 to one million protesters. The working-unions said three millions. I was in the Annecy protest march and there the authority lied intensively.You should have done like I used to do during the cold war about US and Russian propaganda: 1 + 3 = 4 : 2 = 2. Two millions will have been a lot closer to the truth. Why did you take the Sarkozy- mafia' side ? Second: The French cake for the working people has been eaten long time ago. Third: Our marvelous Social Security system is not what you describe. One example: Las Spring (March) I though having hearth's problems. I went to the doctor, who send me to an hearth' specialist: first visit 98 €, then I needed a blood checking which costed me 110 €. If I had kept on being blind folded I should have gone to a more serious 4 hours' testing (I have no idea of the price) on perhaps I will have been sent to the new Annecy hospital whose 30 to 40% of the beds are not occupied. At the end of that mess the Social Security reimbursed to me 67 €. When in June I arrived to Orenburg (Russia), my girl friend took me to a specialist clinic. Your doctors found absolutely nothing wrong with my hearth and my blood. Then with a more extensive study, they found out that my lungs' infection contracted in 1983-84 when working for Boeing was not completely ill. The whole Russian inspection cost me 20 €. So, Mr Bridge, read my previous comments and correct your affirmations or if you are RT correspondant in France, come to visit me in that lovely village of Thorens-Glières. Remember that: Sincerity is the main ingredient of all human relations...Sincerely . Jean-Claude Meslin

Mr Bridge. I forgot to tell you that in that cake free country, we have 7 to 8 millions of what we call: excluded (this mean poor living under what is described as below the poverty level (I do not know how it is calculated). This number keep on increasing at a faster speed since that cynical machiavelic comedian and his mafia have taken control of France. One out of height French citizen in the luckiest country in the World, live a very sad life. Thank You Sarkonaparte ! Sorry Future French Generations...JCM

So RT is run by the elites. The french people will show the way to all of us. Revolution is on it's way. It could be a bloddy or a more peaceful one but it is coming. RT is bashing the french and not posting my comments but it won't affect the course of history and truth and justice will prevail. People are waiking up fast in France and the others will follow.

The article is contrary to what RT claims of itself- "At RT we are set to step beyond the boundaries of bare facts and bring you the human side to every story". The story is damn biased against the French workers and its common sense that people make up democracy and not the Senate. So it goes without saying that it is Sarkozy's Senate threatening democracy. I hope you will like to correct yourself and present the human side of the story.

I doubt this gets posted, but here goes anyway: All governments are in on "it." What is IT? MONEY FRAUD. There is no such thing as money, other than "people" agree on what this "commodity," IS. What IS it? IT is COMPUTER KEYSTROKES, primarily. Rachel Corrie was killed by a "Russian Immigrant," who was driving the bulldozer in Israel. What IS IT? IT IS the owners of bulldozers in Israel that can, with full immunity, kill another human who is from America and absent the RULE OF LAW, "home or abroad" there is no consequence for killing life. LIFE IS THE COMMODITY, in other words, and quite valuable at that. It is a rumor and I have not seen the INSURANCE PAYOUTS, but check on the birth certificates and then figure out how many humans have paid dividends to those who own the bulldozers in Israel and find immigrants wherever can be who are poor as dirt and therefore, dozing other humans is just a job for money. THIRD GENERATIONS. The time has come for the Third Generations (Chelsea and Goldman for example) to be set-up for the coming 50 or 100 years and counting. HUMANS ARE FAIR TRADE and FREE when born with a certificate that gives the owners of computer keystrokes in the modern day, the right to recycle THEIR "livelihoods" poor rich and poorer poor. HOORAY FRANCE, the place where freedom is not just a word.

I don't understand what all the commotion here is about. The author of this article is clearly on the side of the protesters.

Hi Sevodnya_Net. I hope you do not draw wrong conclusions. My commentws are directed towards the coverage of France. In fact, I now watch RT by far more then CNN, MSNBC, CNBC or Fox combined. RT progamming is consistently getting better, and some documentaries are world class. All in all, RT gives opportunity to those shunned by "mainstream" media, as they are not likely to support the platitudes served as news or analysis. That said, I continue to watch with some amazement the news slant on French events. Consistently, time is given to few in France that have something negative to say of strikers, as well as government side. RT has not done its homework here. The protests are not about the retirement. They are about the audacity of politicians to take away funds that were guaranteed by contributions, in order to start balancing the black financial hole and debt. In fact, the politicians that are going along with the biggest robbery of middle classes since middle ages, are breaking the rule of law. Instead of defining who was responsible for financial crisis, ensuing governmetent bailouts of banks, and larger deficit, they have skillfully put the spotlight on retirement age. Guess what? It does not matter what is the retirement age in Germany or in Timbaktu. French people paid for their retirements. It is not about 2 years; even two hours would be too much. Once you let the politicians think they can steal from public funds in order to pay for their buddies misdeads, there would be no end to population ripoffs. If every trust fund in France pays equal percent as the public retirement system, then we have some equity. You cannot save private trust funds by forcing public trust funds to cough up the money. The next will be health, education, transportation and anything else that middle class has PAID FOR. France24 is by far more accurate.

Here is the problem. A well coordinated, concerted effort in "message management" has been funded by corporate media to foster the idea that "cutting spending" is a patriotic thing to do, that "selfishness" and inneptitude are responsible for our retirments having to be cut. We live too lavishly, work little, etc. All that to deflect from the culprits of financial disaster. In the end, somebody has to pay, and guess who it is. Not only that the average folks, without any connections in the halls of power will pay, but this will be considered to be for the sake of "saving retirement for future generations", for improving economy, and getting us "reformed" from our sloth and lazyness. How good they are to us! Consider that in France productivity has risen FIVE times since sixties, and has fallen only under Sarkozy and the grand theft in the murky world of finances. In the same period there has been a 10% shift from salaries to profits! French worker (OECD data) works 1,453 hours a year, more then in Germany and Norway (1,337), Sweden (1,316) or Netherlands (1,309). French debt is lower then US, UK, and many other Western countries. While these events are destructive and dangerous and nobody with any sense would wish for it, Government has acted recklessly by taking money from one group of people to pay for the greed and wealth of those who wrecked the system. Also, all the polls are showing that the public by a WIDE margin supports the strikers. RT could give a bit more media time to that MAJORITY, not interviewing those who see the problem as their inconvenience. The politicians may learn that they are NOT ENTITLED to their seats if they listen only to corporate masters, and cover up for banking fraud.

Bianca. Thank you for your comments; they make me feel better. For once I though that RT received their informations from the Neuilly-sur-Seine-mafia's medias who belong to Dassault, Boloré, Bouygues, Lagardère and all the Fouquet-Resto' s clique where Sarkozy celebrated his victory in May 2007. As I have explained to RT earlier, the whole retirements' affair is a huge lie made to get Sarkozy and all his creepy friends richer. No constructive revenues = No retraites. This rule apply everywhere. RT managers should have a little talk with their correspondants in France for sending untrue informations. I am a non fanatic Frenchman whose comments are well published by RT. I know that subject and studied it for years. I pretend to be close to the truth because all French media boycott my comments and I am watched (often my Internet play tricks on me). I call that "sournoise" censure. Sorry Future French Generations; Nothing good for you in sight...Your friend: Jean-Claude Meslin

I think Americans are looking at this story with a big shrug. Retirement age going up to 62? Ours has already gone up to 67 and we did not riot. People grouse about paying Social Security tax and then getting taxed again if they have too much private retirement at age 67, but they don't protest in mass rallies. On the other hand, there are rumours that the Federal government may try to tap into everybody's 401(k) accounts, and if that truly happened, there WOULD be riots here. Did the French own their retirement funds like we own our 401(k) accounts? We don't consider that we "own" Social Security, especially those of us under 50 who fear the whole system will disappear before we retire. Did France really have a trust fund or was it a fiction like here in USA?