Bloody tell me about it. At least you Americans don't have to support the thieving idle French bastards (by means of contributions to the EU, which is run by the thieving idle French bastards). We Brits who don't work for the cushy public sector are going to have to work till we drop and pay exhorbitant taxes to support them and the thieving idle Italian and Greek and Spanish bastards and all the other bastards who cheat on their taxes and don't pay their way or work in public sector non-jobs with their gold-plated, taxpayer-funded pension schemes.

Unless, that is, �we pull out. Join the campaign now and dump the parasites. It means the EU won't be able to give to Pakistan or "Palestine", but I can live with that.

There's nothing, incidentally, that you can tell me about indignation. I wrote the bloody book.

Correction: the above applies to the Eurcrats and quangocrats, which France seems to be plagued with just as much as England.

The answer to the question is probably a fairly reliable indicator of social class.

"Elite" class Americans will say, "We should be more like France - our retirement age should be 60!"

"Prole" class Americans will say, "France should be more like us - their retirement age should be 65 or 70."

This is not inconsistent with your observation that more Americans probably think the French should work until 65, since there are of course more proles than elites.

If it's any comfort, many, french people feel the same way. Ask any passing self-employed person when they will be able to retire it won't be at 62, try adding ten years .  The first pocket rifled by politicians to bribe their way into power is that of the french private sector. Trying to shakedown our European partners is just a fuite en avant.