Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Every year hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar head to a little village to commune

with Guardian spirits called Nats. This bit of folk religion once sat comfortably with

the country's dominant Buddhist beliefs, but now the monks are cracking down on it.

And the town of Asbestos in Canada has a bit of an image problem. Its name is proving

as toxic as the fire-proofing material that was once mined there. So residents are meeting

today to vote on whether to change it.

But first, today in France demonstrators are gathering to protest against President

Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension reforms. Among others, railway workers, teachers, and

hospital staff are all walking out in the latest in a wave of strikes and demonstrations

that began early December.

Asbestos Macron wants to bring the country's sprawling system of 42 different regimes

into one point-based plan. Protesters have denounced the scheme, saying that workers,

especially in the public sector, would lose out.

If the currently proposed system passes in the way it's laid out, it will be a social catastrophe.

Already the previous reforms are seeing people retire with measly pensions. French presidents

have tried before to change the monstrously complex and generous system, but in the face

of massive protests they only managed tweaks. Pensions became a symbol of an apparently

unreformable France. In his new year address, Mr. Macron promised not to back down, saying

abandoning the reform would be a betrayal of our children and their children after them

who would have to pay the price for our giving up.

...