Paul Thomas: Enough of work, it's time to protest

Intriguing images from Paris this week of school students protesting against the retirement age being raised from 60 to 62.

I know the French enjoy a good old-fashioned demo, but since when did students take to the streets over the retirement age? For teenagers who regard 40 as old and 60 as closing in on the age of the dinosaur fossils they keep unearthing in Latin American caves, retirement is way out there in the unimaginable future.

Young people operate on the blithe assumption that the bad things in life, including growing old, won't happen to them, a mindset that accelerates their parents' ageing process. They don't worry about getting old for the same reason they don't worry about global warming: science will sort it out. By the time they hit 50, it will be the new 30.

I guess those students just see themselves as carrying on a grand revolutionary tradition.

"We've done enough work for one lifetime" isn't quite as stirring a rallying cry as "Liberte, egalite, fraternite," but the citizens of France have mobilised to make life as disagreeable as possible for themselves.

Petrol is running out, rubbish is piling up, public transport is grinding to a halt, the economy is hemorrhaging. The thinking seems to be similar to that of troubled teenagers who self-harm: look what you've made me do to myself.

A trade union leader in Marseille told the Associated Press that retiring at 60 was "a birthright which our parents, grandparents, even our great-grandparents fought for".

This clarion call skates over the fact the retirement age was reduced from 65 to 60 less than 30 years ago, and that this unacceptable reform was a key plank in President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election platform.

Despite retirement being rather more pertinent to me than those Parisian students, I seldom give it a thought. That's partly because being a writer who works from home, I already enjoy many of the benefits of being retired.

I don't have to put on a work uniform, be it a suit and tie or overalls; I don't have to set the alarm to make sure I catch the bus or avoid the worst of the traffic; I don't have to shave or, for that matter, shower - after all, it's just me and the dog and she's never complained.

Having said that, the bloke who fixed the lock on the converted garden shed where I work did mention that it seemed a bit musty.

The main reason why I don't think about retirement is that I'm fortunate enough to enjoy what I do, and therefore can't imagine myself wanting to stop doing it. I've also had a reasonably varied career and have lived and worked in several countries.

Not everyone's in this position. To retire at 60 with a pension in France you have to have spent 40 years in the workforce, which pretty much rules out a university education. Many of those desperately keen to retire at 60 have probably been doing the same mundane job in the same place since they left school.

After 40 years as a shelf stacker or toilet cleaner, I might have had enough too.

But the question remains: what do you do with yourself when you retire? Play bowls or golf every day? Bowls doesn't have much appeal and I can't play golf until the mental scars from my last round have healed, a process that can take up to a year.

Then there's the weather: here in Wellington and doubtless in various other parts of the country there are many days when no sane person would contemplate spending several hours on the golf course.

Maybe retirees don't flock to Tauranga and the Gold Coast because their blood's getting thinner; maybe they just want to be able to get away from the television.

Current political events in France, Britain and America provide revealing comparisons. In the United States it's the conservatives who are taking to the streets, but for the opposite reason: they want the Federal Government to butt out of their lives and stop spending money.

American conservatives seem to be more offended by government spending when a Democrat's in the White House, and don't seem to mind big government when the bloated bureaucracy in question is an arm of the military. And if America can't afford a healthcare system, how can it afford to fight two wars?

Meanwhile in Britain the Government has just slashed 490,000 public sector jobs and introduced measures that will reduce the average middle-class family's income by more than $20,000 over the next four years.

As yet there have been no outbreaks of civil unrest. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but the stiff upper lip remains.