San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)

Macron’s pension plan draws more protests

- By Elaine Ganley

PARIS — Opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 staged a new round of protests Saturday to push the government to withdraw the unpopular plan. Determinat­ion remained high, but crowds were far smaller than in past protests.

The nationwide marches, the second round of protests in four days and the seventh since January, were bolstered by ongoing strikes in key sectors, from energy to transport and garbage workers. Uncollecte­d trash piled up in Paris and other cities.

Police clashed with troublemak­ers in several cities, notably Paris, charging, tackling and pepper-spraying intruders dressed in black who set fires to piles of trash along the march route and destroyed bus stops, a street lamp and other urban equipment.

Such “radical elements,” in the language of police, typically join protests to cause trouble. Paris police said 32 people were detained.

Police counted 48,000 protesters in Paris, and the Interior Ministry said there were 368,000 across France — far fewer than the more than 1 million people who marched in cities and towns on Tuesday to denounce a plan widely regarded as unjust.

The leftist union CGT, which typically gives far higher attendance estimates than police, said 300,000 people protested in Paris and more than 1 million around France, numbers still lower than its counts from past protests.

Geraldine Carbonell, a 47year-old public housing employee, said it is wrong to make everyone work until age 64.

“We are not all equal in as far as the jobs we are doing are concerned,” she said. “Sixtyfour years whether you’re a worker or an executive, is not the same.”

The protest marches coincided with debate on the government’s pension reform bill in the Senate, where the clock was ticking to meet a Sunday midnight vote deadline before the legislatio­n moves to the next step in a complex process.

Macron’s refusal to accept union leaders’ request for a meeting has fed the determinat­ion of protesters, the CGT union leader said ahead of Saturday’s march in Paris.

“There’s more anger,” Philippe Martinez insisted, adding that refusing to meet the union leaders organizing the protests was an insult, amounting to “giving the finger.”

Instead, Macron wrote a letter to unions. He said he chose to “make the French work a little longer” because other options would have involved “decreasing pensions, raising taxes or letting our children and grandchild­ren carry the financial burden.”

 ?? Jeremias Gonzalez/Associated Press ?? Opponents of President Emmanuel Macron’s hotly contested plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 took to the streets of France on Saturday for the second time last week in what unions hope will be a new show of force.
Jeremias Gonzalez/Associated Press Opponents of President Emmanuel Macron’s hotly contested plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 took to the streets of France on Saturday for the second time last week in what unions hope will be a new show of force.

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