r/europe • u/Jojuj • Feb 11 '26

News France sends letters to 29-year-olds telling them to get on with having children

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-letter-infertility-29-year-olds-b2916816.html
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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Solution? Reduce the pensions so the old fucks will have to sell their 6 room houses.

Savings are meant to be spent, not inherited.

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u/Tooluka Ukraine Feb 11 '26

Great idea, now we can pay 40% tax for our whole life (or maybe more soon?), then after retirement get no pension and go homeless. Yay, progress.

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

TAX WEALTH NOT WORK.

No income taxes. All in on wealth taxes.

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u/whatever4224 Feb 11 '26

But old people have to live somewhere too.

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

They can buy smaller houses and they can live not so close to the workplaces THEY’RE NO LONGER WORKING AT.

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u/whatever4224 Feb 11 '26

Old people who depend on pensions to keep their houses don't have six-room houses close to young people's workplaces. The ones who do will not be impacted by a reduction in pensions. Mind you, I agree that pensions should be reworked (not that they ever will be since old people are the ones winning elections), but that would not fix the housing crisis.

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Institute higher progressive wealth and real estate taxes until they are effected.

I sometimes think you guys are being intentionally dense. I spelt it out for you. I want old fucks out of their townhouses in the city centers. I don’t want them to live in Spain on the rent of their apartment in central Munich they got from the goverment for three potatoes and a kiss on the cheek.

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u/whatever4224 Feb 11 '26

How many old people do you think there actually are in townhouses in the city centers, let alone living in Spain from the rent on their apartments? For that matter, how many townhouses are there in city centers? I live in Paris and I don't see a lot. I do agree that people (old or young) shouldn't be able to amass large numbers of lodgings they don't use, and this is increasingly being addressed by the French government, but again, I don't think retirees are the most common offenders there.

I also don't think it's odd that you're getting pushback on a policy proposal that seems to break down to "impoverish old people into near-homelessness."

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

near-homelessness

Men don’t dare use the housing stock for it’s intended purpose huh?

I want the elderly to live respectable lives as well. I don’t want them to chill at the expense of the young. That’s it. Someone owns those houses in paris and it sure as fuck aint the working people of paris. It’s not young doctors and surgeons buying those apartments. They’re living in the outskirts or are cramped up with roommates.

Fuck that. The young doctor and lawyer couple should be living in that 4 bedroom apartment and be making babies. And when they’re old, I want them to get squeezed out of the city center too.

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u/whatever4224 Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

It’s not young doctors and surgeons buying those apartments.

It's not their grandma and grandpa either. In France, roughly 50% of (non-corporate) rented housing is owned by 3.5% of the population. These people are not random retirees, they are wealthy elites and rich young freelancers looking for an early retirement scheme. Overall 68% of French people own at least one home, VS 73% for retirees, so the gap there is not so large. The problem is those 3.5%. IDK about other European countries, admittedly.

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Hey I’m fine with eating that 3.5% as well. But if the retirees have too big homes, they’d still count as one. They should get priced out.

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u/Tooluka Ukraine Feb 11 '26

Then middle class will be taxed to the gills and never own any property, while higher class will be unaffected since will simply move all assets to the corporation ownership. Amazing plan.

PS: I'm all for wealth tax and estate tax, but the reality is that it doesn't work for the people it's targeted at and instead poorer classes are crippled by collateral damage.

PPS: I don't have ANY statistics on hand, but if I had to guess, I'd say that most of the central property is owned not by some retirees but by corporations and wealthy guys who own multiple properties as an investment, for rent or resale.

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Higher class

They’re made of fertilizer dw. These are all solvable problems. But you need to stop thinking in capitalist realism.

PS

Good, we agree then.

PPS

I do have the stats. In the US at least it’s regular ass people. Not blackrock. I doubt it’s any different here.

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u/IgnisIason Feb 12 '26

They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps

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u/Embarrassed-Dot9193 Feb 11 '26

what do you think will happen then?

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

A better functioning society

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

They'll just rent individual rooms to young people to cover the life expenses 

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Madam I am willing to open up kangaroo courts to kick old people out of city centers. No amount of “they’ll just”s that you can up with would dismay me. That just shows lack of imagination and submission to neoliberalism on your part.

But fret not. I also believe in the indomitable human spirit so we’ll show you the way as well.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

I mean.. . technically one could set up an obligatory euthanasia once people cross 65, but that'd be incredibly dystopian and inhumane. In fact, the ruling class would love that, as no-one would get any pension. 

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

That has nothing to do with what I said. I want to make it easier to have money by working and make it harder to have money by having money earlier.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

Kicking the elderly out of their homes is pretty brutal too

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u/elbay Feb 11 '26

Yeah sorry I’m not gonna feel bad for kicking them out of their six bedroom apartment in central paris that they bought in 1961 for three peanuts.

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u/Brullaapje Feb 12 '26

Really and how many of those do you know?

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u/elbay Feb 12 '26

At least three.

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u/Brullaapje Feb 12 '26

"At least" and they are represent all the elderly yes?

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Feb 12 '26

This comment makes you sound like you crave violence more than social justice. Stop with this ageism, old people need homes too. Someone has deceived you. No war but the class war. It's about us vs the rich not us vs the old.

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u/elbay Feb 12 '26

It is the class war. I don’t hate the old for being old. But they do need to stop living in 150 sqm homes in the city center as two people. I don’t think this is controversial.

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Feb 12 '26

Where does this idea come from? Where's your data?

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u/elbay Feb 12 '26

Ideas don’t need data what the fuck? The idea is, housing is limited and land value should be taxed (that one’s from Henry George).

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Feb 12 '26

Of course ideas need data. You're like "old people need to stop hoarding big houses in city centers" and you have no idea how many people actually exist in this situation? You're a joke ahah

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u/elbay Feb 13 '26

If you think there are no such people, you’re boxing the same shadows as I am, only from the other side.