Pension protests cause major disruptions
France braced for more transport blockages yesterday, with mass strikes and protests set to hit the country for the second time in a month in objection to a planned reform to raise the retirement age.
Around one million people were expected to take to the streets nationwide yesterday, a police source told AFP, rallying against plans to boost the age of retirement from 62 to 64.
France currently has the youngest age for becoming a pensioner in any major European economy.
On Jan 19, some 1.1 million voiced their opposition to the proposed shakeup — the largest protests since the last major round of pension reform in 2010.
Many people had to find alternative means of transport, work from home or take time off to look after their schoolage children yesterday, with workers in transport and education sectors among those staging walkouts.
Most Paris metro and suburban rail services were severely restricted, the capital’s transport operator RATP said.
Intercity travel was also disrupted, with just one in three high-speed trains running, national railway company SNCF said.
Air travel was less badly affected, with national carrier Air France saying ahead of the strikes it would cancel one in 10 short and medium-haul services, but long-distance flights would be unaffected.
Only minor disruption were observed on international train services including the Eurostar.
Around half of all nursery and primary school teachers took part in the strike, the main teachers’ union Snuipp-FSU said.
About 61% of French people support the protest movement, a new poll by the OpinionWay survey group showed on Monday — a rise of three percentage points from Jan 12.
The most controversial part of the overhaul is hiking the minimum retirement age.
But the changes are also to increase the number of years people have to make contributions before they can receive a full pension.
President Emmanuel Macron put pensions reform at the heart of his re-election campaign last year. The 45-year-old centrist on Monday said the changes were “essential when we compare ourselves to the rest of Europe”.
He insists they are necessary to guarantee the future financing of the pension system, which is forecast to tip into deficit in the next few years.
But opponents point out that the system is currently balanced, quoting the head of the independent Pensions Advisory Council as saying: “Pension spending is not out of control, it’s relatively contained.”