Protesters hold French CGT labour union flags as they gather at Place d’Italie during a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of
Benoit Tessier | Reuters
Huge crowds marched across France on Tuesday to say “Non” to President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make people work longer before retirement, with pressure in the streets intensifying against a government that says it will stand its ground.
Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose increasing the retirement age to 64 from 62, a move which Macron says is “vital” to ensuring the viability of the pension system.
In Paris, while police and union estimates varied widely, they all agreed that numbers were up from the first nationwide day of protests against the reform on Jan. 19.
That held true across much of France. In the western city of Nantes, for example, 23,000 people took to the streets, authorities said, up from 17,000 on the 19th.
“It’s better than on the 19th … It’s a real message sent to the government, saying we don’t want the 64 years,” Laurent Berger, who leads CFDT, France’s largest union, said ahead of the Paris march.
Marching behind banners reading “No to the reform” or “We won’t give up,” many said they would take to the streets as often as needed for the government to back down.
“For the president, it’s easy. He sits in a chair … he can work until he’s 70, even,” bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast. “We can’t ask roof layers to work until 64, it’s not possible.”
Striking workers disrupted French refinery deliveries, public transport and schools, even if, in several sectors, fewer walked off the job on Tuesday than on Jan. 19 as a cost-of-living crisis makes it harder to skip a day’s pay.
French gendarmes stand on position in front of a BNP Paribas bank branch during a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
More strikes?
For unions, who looked likely to announce more industrial actions later in the day, the challenge will be maintaining walkouts at a time when high inflation is eroding salaries.
A union source said some 36.5% of SNCF rail operator workers were on strike by midday — down nearly 10% from Jan. 19 — even if disruption to train traffic was largely similar.
On the rail networks, only one in three high-speed TGV trains were operating and even fewer local and regional trains. Services on the Paris metro were thrown into disarray.
Utility group EDF said 40.3% of workers were on strike, down from 44.5%. The education ministry also said fewer teachers walked off their job.
Unions and companies at times disagreed on whether this strike was more or less successful than the previous one. For TotalEnergies, fewer workers at its refineries had downed tools, but the CGT said there were more.
In any case, French power supply was down by about 5% or 3.3 gigawatts (GW) as workers at nuclear reactors and thermal plants joined the strike, EDF data showed.
And TotalEnergies said deliveries of petroleum products from its French sites had been halted, but customers’ needs were met.
‘Brutal’
The government has said that pushing the retirement age to 64 was “non-negotiable.”
And with the reform posing a test of Macron’s ability to push through change now that he has lost his working majority in parliament, some felt resigned amid bargaining with conservative opponents who are quite open to pension reform.
Protesters hold a banner during a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
“There’s no point in going on strike. This bill will be adopted in any case,” said 34-year-old Matthieu Jacquot, who works in the luxury sector.
The pension system reform would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.18 billion) in annual pension contributions, according to Labour Ministry estimates. Unions say there are other ways to raise revenue, such as taxing the super-rich or asking employers or well-off pensioners to contribute more.
“This reform is unfair and brutal,” said Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants’ UNSA union.
At a local level, some announced “Robin Hood” operations unauthorized by the government. In the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne area, the local CGT trade union branch cut power to several speed cameras and disabled smart power meters.
“When there is such a massive opposition, it would be dangerous for the government not to listen,” said Mylene Jacquot, secretary general of CFDT’s civil servants branch.