Archive for retirement
the endless debate about retraites
Posted in Books, Kids with tags debt, French elections, French politics, Le Monde, pensions, retirees, retirement, retraites, Statistics, voters suppression on July 31, 2025 by xi'an
revenir à Montréal
Posted in Books, pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags Canada, celebrations, CRM-SSC, CRM-SSC Prize, Leonard Cohen, Mont Royal, Montréal, mural, Purdue University, Québec, retirement, Société Statistique du Canada, Université de Montréal on October 17, 2024 by xi'an
local mayhem, again and again and again…
Posted in Kids, pictures, Travel, University life with tags bicycle, cycle path, debt, ENSAE, fire-fighter, flat tyre, industrial action, Opéra de Paris, optimal transport, Paris, Paris metro, Paris-Saclay campus, RER, retirement, strike, taxi, unions, University of Warwick, Vancouver on December 27, 2019 by xi'an
The public transports in France and in particular in Paris have now been on strike for three weeks. In connection with a planned reform of the retirement conditions of workers with special status, like those in the train and metro companies, who can retire earlier than the legal age (62). As usual with social unrest in France, other categories joined the strike and the protest, including teachers and health service public workers, as well as police officers, fire-fighters and opera dancers, and even some students. Below are some figures from the OECD about average retirement conditions in nearby EU countries that show that these conditions are apparently better in France. (With the usual provision that these figures have been correctly reported.) In particular, the life expectancy at the start of retirement is the highest for both men and women. Coincidence (or not), my UCU affiliated colleagues in Warwick were also on strike a few weeks ago about their pensions…
Travelling through and around Paris by bike, I have not been directly affected by the strikes (as heavy traffic makes biking easier!), except for the morning of last week when I was teaching at ENSAE, when I blew up a tyre midway there and had to hop to the nearest train station to board the last train of the morning, arriving (only) 10mn late. Going back home was only feasible by taxi, which happened to be large enough to take my bicycle as well… Travelling to and from the airport for Vancouver and Birmingham was equally impossible by public transportation, meaning spending fair amounts of time in and money on taxis! And listening to taxi-drivers’ opinions or musical tastes. Nothing to moan about when considering the five to six hours spent by some friends of mine to get to work and back.
in a house of lies [book review]
Posted in Books, Travel with tags Brexit, detective story, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Ian Rankin, PM, Rebus, retirement, Scotland on August 7, 2019 by xi'an
While I found the latest Rankin’s Rebus novels a wee bit disappointing, this latest installment in the stories of the Edinburghian ex-detective is a true pleasure! Maybe because it takes the pretext of a “cold case” suddenly resurfacing to bring back to life characters met in earlier novels of the series. And the borderline practice of DI Rebus himself. Which should matter less at a stage when Rebus has been retired for 10 years (I could not believe it had been that long!, but I feel like I followed Rebus for most of his carreer…) The plot is quite strong with none of the last minute revelations found in some earlier volumes, with a secondary plot that is much more modern and poignant. I also suspect some of the new characters will reappear in the next books, as well as the consequences of a looming Brexit [pushed by a loony PM] on the Scottish underworld… (No,. I do not mean TorysTories!)
y a plus de mouchoirs au bureau des pleurs
Posted in pictures, University life with tags French politics, gilets jaunes, Le Monde, les petits mouchoirs, PhD students, protest, retirement, taxes, tribune, unemployement on January 10, 2019 by xi'an
Once the French government started giving up to some requests of the unstructured “gilets jaunes” protesters, it was like a flood or flush gate had opened and every category was soon asking for a rise (in benefits) and a decrease (in taxes) or the abolition of a recent measure (like the new procedure for entering university after high school). As an illustration, I read a rather bemusing tribune in Le Monde from a collective of PhD students against asking non-EU students (including PhD students) to pay fees to study in French universities. This may sound a bit of a surrealistic debate from abroad, but the most curious point in the tribune [besides the seemingly paradoxical title of students against Bienvenue En France!] is to argue that asking these students to pay the intended amount would bring their net stipends below the legal minimum wage, considering that they are regular workers… (Which is not completely untrue when remembering that in France the stipends are taxed for income tax and retirement benefits and unemployment benefits, meaning that a new PhD graduate with no position can apply for these benefits.) It seems to me that the solution adopted in most countries, namely that the registration fees are incorporated within the PhD grants, could apply here as well… The other argument that raising these fees from essentially zero to 3000 euros is going to stop bright foreign students to do their PhD in France is not particularly strong when considering that the proportion of foreign students among PhD students here is slightly inferior to the proportion in the UK and the US, where the fees are anything but negligible, especially for foreign students.
