FRENCH TRADE unions have called two further days of protest for the coming weeks as they intensify their campaign against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pension reform.
Encouraged by the turnout for a 24-hour strike and a wave of marches across the country on Thursday, unions said another protest would take place on Saturday, October 2nd, followed by a day of strikes and protests on Tuesday, October 12th.
In a statement, they warned the government of “the consequences that could follow from ignoring this profound expression of anger”. The government’s plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 has already been adopted by members of the national assembly, but the senate – where the ruling centre-right bloc has a slimmer majority – begins debating the Bill on October 4th.
Organisers claim 2.9 million people took to the streets on Thursday, up from 2.7 million on the last day of action on September 7th. However, the interior ministry put the figure at 997,000.
Just before yesterday’s announcement from the unions, prime minister François Fillon insisted there was no question of the government backing down on the core principle of the retirement age.
“Governing involves listening to everyone but sometimes it also involves saying ‘no’,” Mr Fillon told members of the ruling UMP party in Biarritz.
“We will not withdraw the reform because it is reasonable and necessary.”
With just 18 months to go before a presidential election, he said the government was about to enter a “sensitive period” and called on his party to show “sang froid and resolve”.
The government says that without major changes, the pensions system would run up annual deficits of €50 billion by 2020. It points to France’s lengthening life expectancy and insists investors need to be reassured that France is seeking to cut its budget deficit.
Any change to the retirement age is being resisted by the opposition, which considers the right to retire at 60 as one of the major achievements of the late socialist president François Mitterrand. He cut it from 65 in 1982.
A poll in the daily Libérationthis week suggested 63 per cent of voters supported the strikers, although a number of public sector employers claimed the number of strikers on Thursday was lower than two weeks ago.
The SNCF rail operator said 37 per cent of its staff went on strike this week, compared to 42 per cent during the last day of action. Among civil servants, the government said 20 per cent of workers were absent, a decline of 5 per cent on the previous strike.