FRENCH TRADE unions have called for a nationwide strike and street protests today as the National Assembly begins debating contentious pension reforms.
Protests due to take place in 137 cities and towns across the country could attract up to two million people, organisers say, while public transport, schools and postal services will be disrupted.
The marches come at a delicate time for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made pensions his signature domestic reform but knows an attempt to overhaul the regime by his predecessor Jacques Chirac was shelved after mass street protests crippled public services.
“Depending on how many come out on Tuesday, the government will advance or not advance this reform,” said François Chérèque, leader of the CFDT, one of seven unions supporting the strike.
“It’s a crucial moment.”
The draft law, which raises the legal retirement age to 62 from 60, is due to be presented to the lower house of parliament today by the embattled labour minister, Eric Woerth. 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.
Both sides claim public opinion is with them. A recent poll carried out for France Info radio showed that almost three quarters (73 per cent) of French people approved of today’s protests, although a majority (65 per cent) seemed resigned to the change, believing the strikes would have “no effect on the government’s plans”.
In a separate survey for the newspaper France Ouest, 70 per cent said they supported the protest even though 53 per cent thought it “acceptable” to raise the retirement age to 62. Overall, the polls show support for the reform has been declining since June.
Mr Woerth, the minister tasked with pushing the bill through parliament, has been weakened by a series of allegations surrounding his links to France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. The minister denies any wrongdoing, but several judicial inquiries are under way and opponents of pension reform have made him the target of their attacks.
The unions hope a big turnout will help them extract concessions. But the government stressed that while it will consider minor changes, it will proceed with the key elements of the plan.
Claude Guéant, the powerful secretary general at the Elysée Palace, said changes could be made to take account of those in arduous jobs, but that “the fundamentals of the reform cannot change”.
National railway operator SNCF said about 40 per cent of TGV trains would run and regional trains would face varying degrees of disruption. Air France said all its long-haul flights would operate, as would 90 per cent of the short- and medium-haul flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and 50 per cent from Orly.
Pensions Overhaul: The Government's Proposals
THE CENTREPIECE of the French government's pensions overhaul is the proposal to raise the legal retirement age to 62 from 60 by 2018.
In light of French people's longer life expectancy and the need to cut a soaring budget deficit, the plan envisages making people work at least 41 years and three months before they can retire on a full pension. The requirement is 40.5 years at present.
The government has indicated it may make concessions in three areas: for people in arduous jobs, those who started work in their teens, and those with a mixed record of public and private sector employment. Discussions could also focus on specific reforms aimed at the public sector.
Ministers have said civil servants, who now pay 7.85 per cent of their salary in pension contributions, will see that rise to the 10.55 per cent paid by private sector employees by 2020.
Unions and opposition parties say the reform is unjust and would increase inequalities in society without resolving the country's huge budget deficit, equivalent to about 8 per cent of GDP.