Convinced that “we have the means to retire at 60”, the essayist Michel Onfray opposes the postponement of the retirement age that the Government wants to set at 64 years. Consequently, the intellectual, who recently published the third volume of his ship of fools -reference taken from the painter Jérôme Bosch to headline his diary for the year 2022- expressed his support for the social movement that fights against the reform project.
“Many people have reason to be angry”
And while the inter-union, still united, calls to “paralyze the country” next Tuesday, March 7, Michel Onfray expressed his solidarity with the workers’ organizations: “I support the blockades.” “I agree with what the unions are asking for today”, he later reinforced, believing that the demonstrations and strikes were signs of an even more general weariness:
“It goes even beyond the pension reform, it becomes a kind of appeal to the people. It’s a way of saying: ‘So do you support Macron or not? Do you support his policy or not?'” he asked.
“It’s like with a referendum where, after a while, it’s not the question anymore that matters. It’s just that we can’t get enough of this man, this policy,” he added.
He then illustrated this popular anger: “A lot of people have reason to be unhappy, if only the bakers when they see their electricity bill.” “When the balance of power can be reversed, it must be done,” she insisted.
On the bottom, Michel Onfray judges that the pension reform project is just an attack by globalization on French sovereignty, seeing in it the translation of a requirement of the European Commission. “It’s simply a European decision, which makes us go through something important, urgent,” he said.
“We can escape from Europe, we can continue to be sovereign by saying that there is no urgency. Europe wants unification in everything (…) It is about working on a dilution of the peoples,” he continued.
The author even criticized the influence of the United States: “You are aware that France plays a particular game with Europe, that national sovereignty has been lost since 1992 (date of signing of the Maastricht Treaty, Editor’s Note) and that Europe plays a special role with the United States.”
Michel Onfray also thinks that Emmanuel Macron was too poorly elected, supported by a majority too relative to the National Assembly, to have the means of his policy, in any case as far as pensions are concerned: “Legitimacy does not exist because Macron believes that people are at their service. But we consult people, we ask them what they want and when people say: ‘No, we’re not interested’, we continue”. “There we say: ‘We have a road map, that’s right,'” he lamented.
Source: BFM TV
