It never ceases to amaze me how the first to side with management and denounce the "unbelievable privileges" of pilots are always... other pilots.
We slave away for years to learn our trade, risking our lives if in the military, working for poverty-wages if in general aviation, or else putting our entire family deeply in debt if paying our way through to line training. If we're lucky enough to make it to the fabled airline job, we then spend a large chunk of our lifetimes away from our families, missing out on countless weekends/festivities/get-togethers with friends, working at odd hours, skipping meals, dealing with whatever weather or tech problems the gods might throw at us, battling jet-lag and stress, and generally living a very unhealthy lifestyle, all on the understanding that you could lose
everything you've fought for at the very next medical or check-ride.
Notwithstanding all their perks, I'm willing to bet AF's cockpit crew represent no more than 3% or so of the airline's total costs. And yet management always want more, more and more, even as their own bonuses grow ever bigger.
Even if you don't want to support your colleagues precisely because they are your fellow aviators, consider that even as AF management deal with their "excessive cost",
your management is eying
you and thinking the exact same thing. As soon as those haughty AF pilots are "cut down a notch", you're probably next in line.
Personally, I admire AF pilots for refusing to join the race to the bottom that this industry has become.