France braces for violence in strike over Macron’s pension reforms

FRANCE faces paralysis today as it prepares for one of the biggest nationwide strikes in years in a stand-off between Emmanuel Macron and unions that police fear could turn violent.

In what has already been dubbed “Black Thursday”, hundreds of domestic and short-haul international flights have been cancelled.

Easyjet has axed 223 flights and warned that others risk being delayed. Cancellations and delays are also expected on cross-channel Eurostar rail services while 90 per cent of fast TGV and regional trains will not run.

Most of the Paris Metro will be shut along with the majority of schools in a showdown over the president’s planned pension reforms. Unions warn that the strikes are “open-ended” and could last for days.

French commuters are preparing alternative modes of transport from e-scooters to car-sharing amid comparisons with an epic clash over pensions in the winter of 1995, which saw the country paralysed for three weeks. The administration of Jacques Chirac eventually caved in.

The stand-off is seen as a key test of Mr Macron’s reformist mettle. Early in his presidency, he rushed through labour and public rail reforms, but then lost steam during the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) revolt. Now isolated on the international stage over Nato, domestic defeat could turn him into a lame duck president.

“Pensions is the big test. If we stall, the presidency is over. We won’t do anything else,” one government heavyweight is cited as warning in Le Monde.

The unions are keen to show they still command clout after their failure to strong-arm Mr Macron into backtracking on earlier reforms and being sidelined during the gilets jaunes protests.

This time, an array of mainly public sector workers will down tools with hundreds of thousands of rail, bus, airline and utility staff, along with nurses, teachers and civil servants expected to walk out. Fuel depots may be blocked.

Mr Macron insists that now is the time to end unfair discrepancies between 42 different “special” regimes that allow some to retire on a full pension in their early fifties. He wants a single system in which each day worked earns points for a worker’s future pension benefits.

At 14 per cent of economic output, French spending on public pensions is among the highest in the world. The system will run a deficit of more than €17 billion (£14.4 billion) by 2025 if nothing is done, experts warn.

Most unions have rejected the reform, even though it has shied from raising the retirement age – currently 62 – and will not be unveiled in detail until next week. Government talk of sweeteners for teachers and “room for manoeuvre” with public transport workers appears to have had little effect.

“Turnout out will be high. The real question is will there be violence,” said one Macron aide.

Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, said 245 demonstrations were expected nationwide, warning that a radical fringe of demonstrators could cause trouble. Security services fear that the yellow vests, whose weekly protests sometimes ended in extreme violence, could return to the fray.