Strikes again

France's retirement age was last set in 1983. Since then, GDP per person has increased by 45%. The increase in life expectancy is very small by comparison. The number of workers per retiree declined from 4.4 in 1983 to 3.5 in 2010, but the growth of national income was vastly more than enough to compensate for the demographic changes, including the change in life expectancy.

Once again I am in France and don't know about getting back to Geneva. There is a plan B. If I can make the border, I can train to Barcelona and make it to the airport and fly back, an expensive alternative that I didn't have last time. We expect no more volcanoes to stop flights. Meanwhile I have met only one person here who is not on the side of the strikers.

I keep hearing we can't afford it from governments. I like the ideas expressed in a Guardian editorial today written by Weisbrot.

"The situation is similar going forward: the growth in national income over the next 30 or 40 years will be much more than sufficient to pay for the increases in pension costs due to demographic changes, while still allowing future generations to enjoy considerably higher living standards than people today. It is simply a social choice as to how many years people want to live in retirement and how they want to pay for it.

"If the French want to keep the retirement age as is, there are plenty of ways to finance future pension costs without necessarily raising the retirement age. One of them, which has support among the French left (and which Sarkozy claims to support at the international level), would be a tax on financial transactions. Such a "speculation tax" could raise billions of dollars of revenue – as it currently does in the UK – while simultaneously discouraging speculative trading in financial assets and derivatives. The French unions and protesters are demanding that the government considers some of these more progressive alternatives."

Reitrement is not mandatory at 60. Full pensions do not kick in until 65.

Will Sarkozy give in. I doubt it.

He suffers from PMS (Petit Man Syndrome)