I love this guy - the first French person I really like. But, reading this article reminds me of the early days of President Bush’s days. Only hope is that this French President does not go the way our President did on fiscal policies.
Sarko starts out with high demands. He will only replace 1/2 the departing civil servants. As a concession to the commies, he relents and will replace 2 of 3. That was probably his goal in the first place. Meantime, the commies save face by claiming a concession.
yitbos
For once, it appears France may be on the right path ahead of us. Can’t be much longer before the American people wake up and realize we’ve created a privileged class: public workers. Generous pensions, higher pay, health care for life, etc....all paid for by private sector employees who don’t come close to enjoying the same benefits.
This hasn’t reached a boiling point yet because it’s been reported in isolated local newspapers. States, cities, counties...all over the country they are facing what they call a “pension crisis”. Their answer? Raise taxes to pay for overly generous benefits the pols gave away to gain political favor from public employee unions. The media goes along and treats it as a crisis. But one of these days, someone’s going to point out that this is happening all over the country and the public is being soaked to pay others for benefits they themselves don’t get.
I think it’s only a matter of time before someone “nationalizes” this story and the public says: “Wait a minute. We can’t even dream of a pension anymore. Why should we pay what we pay now, let alone MORE, to give these so-called public servants close-to-full-salary retirements, lifetime health insurance, 3 times as many holidays as we get, generous cumulative sick pay, etc.?!”.