Public transport, schools and electricity, oil and gas supplies were disrupted in France as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets Tuesday for a third round of strikes and protests across the country against reform plans for government pensions.
The demonstrations came a day after French lawmakers began debating a pension bill that would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. The bill is the flagship legislation of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term.
Tens of thousands of people marched in the cities of Nice, Marseille, Toulouse and Nantes, and in other parts of the country. A protest was scheduled for the afternoon in Paris.
Last week about 1.27 million people demonstrated, according to authorities, more than on the first big day of protest on January 19. More demonstrations, called by France’s eight main unions, were planned for Saturday.
Rail operator SNCF said train traffic was severely disrupted across the country on Tuesday, including on its high-speed network. International lines to Great Britain and Switzerland were affected. The Paris metro was also disrupted.
Saad Kadiui, 37, a consulting chief of staff who had to pass a damaged Paris train station on Tuesday, said he did not support the strikes, calling them “suffering.” “There are other ways to protest the pension reform,” he said.
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Kadiui supports the principle of pension reform but wants the bill to be improved in parliament. “I think for some jobs, 64 is too late,” he said.
Power producer EDF said the protest movement led to the temporary reduction of electricity supplies, without causing blackouts. More than half the workforce was on strike at TotalEnergies refineries, according to the company.
A passenger waits at the Gare de Lyon station in Paris, France, on February 7, 2023. The French parliament began debating the president’s unpopular pension reform proposals, which sparked strikes in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
The Education Ministry said about 13% of teachers were on strike, a decrease compared to last week’s day of protest. A third of the French regions were on scheduled school holidays.
Macron has vowed to press ahead with the changes, despite opinion polls showing growing opposition. The bill would gradually increase the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 and accelerate a planned measure that states that people must have worked for at least 43 years to be entitled to a full pension, among other measures.
The government argues that the changes are designed to keep the pension system financially afloat. France’s aging population is expected to plunge into system deficit over the next decade.
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The debate in the National Assembly and the Senate is expected to last several weeks.
Opposition lawmakers have proposed more than 20,000 amendments to the bill debated on Monday, mostly by the left-wing Nupes coalition.
Philippe Martínez, general secretary of the powerful CGT union, called on the government and legislators to “listen to the people.” Speaking on French radio station RT, he denounced Macron’s attitude as “playing with fire”.
Macron wants to show that “he is capable of approving a reform, no matter what the public opinion is, what the citizens think,” Martínez said.
CFDT union leader Laurent Berger also called on the government to “listen” to the crowds that took to the streets. “One can only respond to social tension through the democratic exercise of power,” he told the French newspaper La Croix.
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The rancor over the pension plan went beyond the raucous parliamentary debate. The president of the Lower House, the National Assembly, denounced that the bill caused anonymous voice messages, graffiti and a threatening letter to the head of the chamber’s Social Affairs Commission.
“That’s enough,” Yael Braun-Pivet tweeted. “These acts are an attack on our democratic life… We will not tolerate it.”
Several lawmakers from the far-right Agrupación Nacional party received voicemails during Monday’s debate saying their loved ones were hospitalized, in an apparent ploy to force them to leave the assembly. The group’s leader, Marine Le Pen, said she was filing a legal complaint.
