They call it the “French scar”, an alarming wound on the cheek that some teenagers inflict on themselves on TikTok, just as an angry France is bursting the floodgates of order. The protests have disturbed the peace of a country that, until the arrival of the yellow vests, seemed to have it all: grandeur, perfumes, cars, cheeses and a coastline that calls its cities sur-Mer. “Dismissal!!! Damn poet!!!”, read the banners of masked men in Paris, Nantes or Rennes, who threw cobblestones at riot police and lit street fires.
More than three million French people demonstrated against the new law that raises the retirement age by two years and sets it at 64. Between clouds of smoke and piles of garbage (due to the union strike) the protesters spat against the poetry of Macron, the one who baptized her party as Renaissance when the popular perception is today of Déclin.
They are not willing to violate a longed-for right generation after generation, the true fortune of their life: withdraw it. Or is it not a genre unto itself, the French retiree at the campsite, with a blade of grass between his teeth and a pot-bellied happiness? I remember the tiet de França, who, when he retired –very young–, would escape to see us with a suitcase full of inventions and Le Coq polo shirts. He took advantage of his free time to discover little acupuncture machines and collect clippings on vegetarianism, although, as he sat down at the table shirtless, my father had to warn him that we were not yet “wild” retirees.
From France then came the modern, while today refinement is burned in its streets, using violence to defend an untouchable plot of the future. I do not know if I will reach retirement, and if Escrivá’s ambitious plan will guarantee us a holiday, but if there is no shielding, my generation can already prepare for a melee fight in order to defend its legitimate handful of Monday sur-Mer.
