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The Conversation newsletter to better understand the world's major issues . Subscribe today ] To be moral, according to a majority of French people, one must therefore be for the people, indifferent to questions of money and avoid economic reasoning and calculations. But that's still not enough. To be a moral person is also to be a person who is indignant, who protests, who demonstrates against the powerful. Supporting institutions and their leaders is rather a sign of submission, a weakness. Greatness is in indignation, as the title of the resistance fighter Stéphane Hessel's bestseller published in 2011 so aptly put it: “Be indignant! » .
Under these conditions, advancing demographic and economic arguments in favor of prudent management of public finances is “betraying the good cause”. It is easy to understand that the legal retirement age is no longer the main question in this month of March 2023. A shift has taken place towards a new question: the inability of the Canada phone number list President of the Republic to behave like a king debonair capable of protecting citizens against "too great financial risks" , to use his formula, to justify the use of 49.3. What is at stake is his ability to behave like a "nurturing king", to ensure the well-being of his people and to promise them that it will always be so.
A traditional conception of morality is at work. It is expressed by demonstrations, popular jubilation, disorder. It becomes morally obligatory to participate in this mess in order to be a “good citizen”. What if we abolished the “legal” age? There may be a solution to reconcile economic logic and traditional French social morality: instead of setting a legal retirement age, on the contrary, the “legal” age must be solemnly abolished. The state must stop being arrogant and imposing its law. Although I am not a specialist in the economics of pension systems, it seems to me that this proposal is not impracticable. This is what, for example, Peter A. Diamond suggests in 2006 in the Revue française d'économie . In his academic article , the American economist points out that: “Some workers like their work and would like to continue their activity beyond what some consider to be the normal retirement age.
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