Talk:November 2007 strikes in France

Logical fallacy/bias regarding public opinion claim

I have removed from the article the statement, "Public opinion is behind Sarkozy according to recent polls that showed that 6 out of 10 voters feel that public-sector employees should not retire at 50 or 55 while private-sector workers can only retire after the age of 60." This statement makes a highly speculative and unsupported interpretation of the poll result: just because people object to the disparity in retirement age between public- and private-sector employees does not necessarily mean that they favour raising the retirement age for public-sector employees. (For instance, they could just as easily be arguing that the retirement age for private-sector employees be lowered.) This statement was referenced, but the logical fallacy comes from the source itself. Wikipedia should not be repeating logical fallacies (at least, not without marking them as such). —Psychonaut 18:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, you've got a point there, for the record, the quote I used to source this in the article (from the International Herald Tribune) is "According to several recent polls, Sarkozy has public opinion behind him - 6 out of 10 voters agree that public-sector employees, including train drivers and utility workers, should not be allowed to retire at 50 or 55 when the rest of the population works until 60 or beyond.". I agree with the removal as it was, although I feel that perhaps it could be reintroduced in a more NPOV manner, any ideas? JACOPLANE • 2007-11-13 18:07

The problem is that the source does not state a fact; it makes a wildly unsupported interpretation of a fact. If you want, you can write something like "A journalist from The International Herald Tribune claims, without giving any evidence, that public opinion is behind Sarkozy", but I don't see much point. A single journalist's logical fallacy is not usually notable. Perhaps at some point someone will publish the results of a poll which indicate whether or not public opinion is behind Sarkozy, and if and when that happens, we can mention that in this article. —Psychonaut 18:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll try and see if I can track down the actual opinion poll. JACOPLANE • 2007-11-13 18:20

Think about it, would you like to be one of those passangers effectively stranded at the station because someone you don't know nor really care about is on strike.. no. Public support may start high, but it will rapidly diminish if it is affecting their daily life! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.184.43 (talk) 06:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow too bad that has nothing to do with the content of the article and is only your unsupported opinion. What even was the purpose of that comment? Please refrain from this sort of commenting in the future. TimD (talk) 02:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Nice Work

This page is an excellent example of Wikipedians working together to form a NPOV article quickly and efficiently. Brings a metaphorical tear to my eye. TimD 21:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The article is far from perfect, though the neutralisty is easier to get as you don't have too many persons directly involved. That makes a big difference :) --Bombastus (talk) 11:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Sarkozy vs. Government

The strike was over President Nicolas Sarkozy attempt to reduce early retirement benefits for 500,000 public employees.

Technically, it is the government, not the president, who is trying to implement these reforms. And in any case, an apostrophe is missing.--Scotchorama (talk) 17:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

SNCF employees aren't public employees..--Bombastus (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

No but they are subject to the same "régime de retraite". Jackaranga (talk) 15:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. Public servants and SNCF workers are subject to different regimes and the very goal of this reform is to give them the same "regime de retraite". Yet, the real reform would have been to give everybody the same regime, i.e. the regime of private sector workers. --Bombastus (talk) 00:13, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm translating the full article, proof readers would be appreciated soon, hopefully it will help to understand what the strike is about. Jackaranga (talk) 17:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Updating/editing the article

Since the events described are no longer a current event, but months in the past, shouldn't the entire article now be rewritten in the past tense?

WikiReaderer (talk) 19:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

NPOV?

Nope. While I am personally a strike-sympathizer I can safely say this article is larglely biased, especially when talking about how the media portrayed the event. Strike on! But let's make this article unbiased. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 19:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)