I had too look it up but it looks to me like France is a nation in flux but an atypical flux and only atypical because of the timing in a perfect storm of resource management, political events, economic circumstance, and a little but of fear. France is fearful of letting history repeat itself.

The times are stressed in France right now with "petrol" shortages, student and union strikes, clashes with police, and civil unrest due to all of this and now the unfortunately timed economic pressure on the government to do something about the bankrupting of the French economy.

A likely partial fix for the struggling economy? Moving up the retirement age from 60 to 62. On its face that move does not seem all that tough to swallow. Two years? Easy right? Make a few changes and adapt just a bit and everyone concerned should be just fine right? I would think so but for the timing. Add all of the social pressures, economic pressures, fuel shortages, fear of change and you get that spark that fuels a country to rioting and other civil unrest.

What France does not need is to go bankrupt and have to be bailed out like Greece and the French also really do not want a repeat of 1968 when 800,000 students, workers, and teachers marched on the capital to protest the government of Charles de Gaulle. This march, the days before, and the 10 or so days after were peppered with rioting and other violent clashes between police and protesters. The French government must have 1968 in the front of their memory and might be a bit trigger happy to do whatever it takes to squelch this unrest and not let it escalate any further. "1968 cannot happen in 20!0" might be likely quote from someone in the know as a member of the French government.

I think the retirement age will be moved up to 62 from 60, the petrol prices will go up drastically but shortages will cease, the civil unrest and rioting will continue until a world media central incident occurs, and in the end France will be the recipient of some sort of bailout from their neighbors in Europe and maybe even the US where the word "bailout" has become a 4 letter fighting word.

In the end France will settle, the retirement age goes up, the citizens adapt, the economy recovers, the more expensive petrol will keep flowing, and the fringe will subside, and the culture changed leaving the new France as a nation accepting the changes it has to make in order to survive in 2010 and in the years, decades, and centuries to come.