What Israelis should learn from Paris about protests
Police apply force to disperse the protestors, to no avail. Week after week, the demonstrations build in size and intensity, triggering economic chaos and threatening the stability of a shaky governing coalition.
Finally, when the head of state realizes he lacks a parliamentary majority for his linchpin legislation, he resorts to a technical maneuver to bypass parliament and ram his plan through.
You would be excused for thinking this is an almost perfect description of Israel for the last three months, but it’s not.
All this is happening in France over a controversial and divisive proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. French president Emmanuel Macron deemed this measure essential to keep the country’s pension system solvent. Keeping in mind Charles de Gaulle’s quip that it’s impossible to govern a country with 262 types of cheese, Macron resorted to brutal political force to get his way. And unlike Israel, whose High Court intervenes in almost every major government decision, France’s highest legal body, the Constitutional Council, upheld Macron.
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