Übergeek 바둑이: Your general analysis is rather good, and I thank you for this commentary, but I don't totally agree with, only on a few details :

- In France, the unemployement is about 10 % of the active population : sometimes less, sometimes more but the variation is little : about 1 to 1,5 %. We have also a system for counting unemployed persons which is different from other countries in Europe : example : if someone works 70 % of the time and says " I look for a job with a time 30 % more or else 100 % ", he's considered as un unemployed person. So, you see the notion of unemployement is very wide and I could give you other examples if necessary.

- When you speak about benefits when a couple has a child : paternity leave is very recent and the father gets only 11 days with the mother. And with only 1 child, there's no family allowance, it begins with 2 children and it's not very important (example : for my 2 children, I receive about 150 Euros (210 $) and my elder son is student and believe me, I don't make benefits !).

- About the last strikes in France : the problem doesn't come only from the retirement age. The president Sarkozy has a very authoritarian politics and rejects the dialog with the labor unions. When we see the opinion polls, people rather agree to raise the retirement age but not for the hard jobs, for example the building trade. But the government doesn't want to hear that.

- About the decrease in the statutory working hours (a shorter work week), it hasn't really changed for many people, because many companies have decided to maintain the same length and to give breaks. I'm in this case : I work during 38,5 h instead of 35 hours per week, and I've sometimes the possibibily to reduce this length. It gives me a benefit of about 10 days in the year, but some of these days are choosen by the employer.

As you can see, it's not simple !