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Are people actually living longer, or is life expectancy stats no longer being thrown off by babies dying before two?
I'm sort of curious: How do the French citizenry organize these general strikes? It happens often enough that there must be some streamlined way of doing it and getting the word out. >

Unions are big in France >

The union membership rate in France is below 10%, compared to e.g. 50-90% in Nordic countries. It's low by European standards, and even lower than the US. >

That's true, however the rate is higher for the public instances (education, transport, administration...) and people tend to follow the strikes even if they aren't registered in a union. >

I admire how the French actually show up and fight for things rather than just letting the government and corporations run roughshod over them all the time. >

The rest of us should be studying and taking notes >

Amazon workers: Workers rights? What's that? >

As soon as they learn the answer and share it, they become an ex-Amazon worker. >

Cries in dutch our retirement age is 67 currently. Every few years it gets higher >

France has a serious demographics problem, and are tied for the most generous retirement conditions among EU countries. >

How do they expect this stuff to be paid for? I'm living in Germany and I will probably drop dead before I see my pension and I don't expect to have much to show for even if I reach pension age... but I understand the problem so I understandably (and selfishly) wished I could opt out of the pension system altogether and pay a private pension or buy ETFs or whatever with my money. >

I am of the opinion that Defined Contribution retirement benefits are superior to Defined Benefits.
The US has a bit of both in a defined beiniftis system from Social Security, and allow for Defined Contributions in 401ks and IRAs. Unfortunately with the recent downturns, I'm only up 5% over my total contribution. >

In germany only self employed individuals can  opt out of the public one... and with the declining birth rates of this country, on the long run that kinda means I'm legally forced into a ponzi scheme. >

I used to think it was silly for the French to halt the whole country whenever something inconvenient happens. Now I envy them for being right. >

As a french i'll (try) to add some explanations.
First of all, lot french people are quite frugal, so they can go on strike for some days.
The poorest people can't, but the low middle class can. The middle can. The students can. The retired can. The bourgeois can. And the sum of this makes lot of people! And remember in France your boss can't fire you if you go on strike ! 
Second you learn to manifest very young. At the age of 14 you start to go on the streets during students strikes. With all your friends, smoking weed, playing djambé and drinking beers, so when you get older and make correct money, you still want to manifest and smoke weed ahah.
Third french people are not fancy and they dont want huges amounts of money to live. Most people are not killing their asses to pay for  big cars, 250m2 houses ect. We prefer to pay taxes and to have clean streets, good public schools, good public services, very good quality of food, good environnemental laws...
In a way french seems like a social-capitalist country.
It's absolutely not perfect but we want to protect this !
I for example will go to work tomorow, but my HR status will be on strike, so i will not be payed.
I dont go to the street but i participate to the strikers statistics in my company. >

Uh why are you going to work if you arent being paid? >

Because i want to support the global strike, numbers are important not only in the streets but also the number of strikers in each company.
But dont want my project to be late i have an important deadline soon, so I do my part the way i can. >

...Continuing to work is literally not supporting a strike imo? Or am I not understanding something. >

Bro did you not read the part about his project he wants to finish at work?? >

Or the part that the companies send the numbers of strikers to the gov and that's how they measure the strength of the industrial action?
I did that as well at some point. >

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