French right to defend retirement

CONGRATULATIONS on your December front-page lead showing that, even using the slightly flawed measure of GDP per hour worked, the French outperform Germany, the UK and Japan.

They also outperform the US, if the calculation is adjusted for the collateral pollution and damage caused to the world environment, to which the US and China are the biggest contributors.

Life is still balanced in much of France, so people work to live in harmony with themselves and each other.

This essence of their culture emphasises total quality and rejects ostentation and quantity; living up to the motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

It is those values that President Sarkozy is systematically destroying while claiming he is doing it for the good of his chers citoyens.

The citizens, certainly here in southwest France, know this very well.

Your journalist Alice Cannet put the case so well on page six of your paper. Indeed, as she said: “We French had every right to go on strike.”

We would add “and were right to do so”. Perhaps the UK student protests may herald some realisation there that marching on the streets is necessary, instead of lying supine, or at best posting a knee-jerk reaction from time to time on blogs or Facebook, which do nothing better than provide a wailing wall.

Helen and Brian HURLEY
Ribérac (Dordogne)