March 16, 2023

• Macron's legacy is a poorer France.

France’s Senate passed the government’s plan to reform its pension system on Thursday, including raising the country’s retirement age by two years to 64.

The upper house of the French parliament approved the measure with 193 votes for and 114 against.

The bill is scheduled for a vote in the National Assembly starting at 3 p.m.

The government has been releasing stats on participation in protests claiming that any reduction in protest activity shows that there isn't sustained opposition. Let this be a lesson to organizers: think twice before holding a large rally and then trying to sustain that action unless there is a plan to have mobilizations grow in size from that initial action.

Of course, the French support the protests and oppose the pension reforms (this poll from March 9)

• More polling (March 6): https://elabe.fr/reforme-retraite-2023-7/

This is liberal democracy in France. Get elected because you are "not the fascist" and then implement whatever capital wants you to in spite of overwhelming popular opposition.

The left are doing a decent job of connecting the movement outside with the ridiculous French political process:

The left-wing lawmakers defied the ban by liveblogging the content of the heated debates on social media. While the vice-president of the Renaissance group, Sylvain Maillard, praised a joint committee that "gives new life to democracy," the leader of the radical left La France Insoumise group, Mathilde Panot, described "a ludicrous atmosphere, as if there was no social movement," while the eighth day of national protests was taking place outside. On the left, the demand for transparency also focused on a quantification of the measures conceded to the right. "This reform is insincere. We have no real numbers," criticized Communist Senator Cathy Apourceau-Poly. (LM)

In a strange state against the state action, the police who are striking against the pension reforms throughout the country are also trying to force some striking workers back to work:

The Socialists in Paris are opposing such actions, but the French Nation State is trying to over-ride their authority.

the interior minister instructed Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez to ask the city hall to "requisition" resources to clear the streets.

On Wednesday evening, Nuñez informed the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, of his decision to requisition municipal workers to remove the garbage piled up on the capital's sidewalks. Hidalgo had earlier in the day announced that she would not act on this request.

CGT says their members are holding the line, but some privatized companies are using temporary and undocumented workers to break the strike. They are sneaking around in the middle of the night picking up some garbage.

Credit Suisse might have been saved by its central bank ($54bn), but the system continues to be under threat.

Everything is on hold until the European Central Bank releases its rate numbers. And, next week will be the German rate numbers.

Folks are still looking around at what will tumble next. These things are slow moving crises as the bureaucracies themselves are extremely slow moving.

Prepare for more positive narratives coming from governments telling you that the banking system is "sound".

The focus of COP28 will be whether 1.5C limit is achievable in the face of governments not doing anything to try to reach that limit.

Scientists estimate that the world has already warmed by at least 1.1C compared with pre-industrial levels.

Bill Gates, whose investment firm Breakthrough Energy invests in climate change innovations, has repeatedly said the 1.5C target is not achievable any longer. He argues that as well as trying to limit warming, we will need to prepare for a hotter world.

Politicians and capitalists who are fools think that it is just a number on a page. It isn't:

We are, of course, not even going to hit 2C. We are on target for 4-5C.

There are ways to reach 1.5. But, they require global democratic socialism, investment, mobilization of sufficient human value creation, work, and redirected effort.

Such processes have occurred through history at smaller scales. Even smaller scales than global re-ordering could have an impact if they were to aim beyond the minimum effort.

Alas, no country on the planet has decided to make that move.

What is missing from this debate is even the amount of mobilization that is necessary to deal with the consequences of climate change.

There is no free pass to this crisis.