Resistance between unions and the government continues in France on Tuesday, where large demonstrations are expected again against an unpopular pension reform wanted by President Emmanuel Macron, which lowers the retirement age to 64 is the spotlight.
While one to two million people demonstrated on January 19 when the first cross-union strike was called, the mobilization index is likely to be high again, with a secret service source counting on 1.2 million demonstrators at the national level “at a high level, including 100,000 in Paris”.
The first processions were scheduled to begin at 10am (9am GMT).
The strike is being closely followed in rail transport, with “very disrupted” metro and suburban trains in the Paris region, as well as the high-speed TGV rail network. The situation is even more difficult for regional trains and long-distance traffic is almost at a standstill.
The national railway company SNCF is responsible for “very badly disturbed” traffic on Monday, depending on the axis with two out of ten regional trains and 25 to 30 percent of the high-speed trains.
In Bordeaux (south-west), Josselin and Alicia Frigier, 40, spent several hours on the bus to return from Madrid but their train to La Rochelle was cancelled.
“Instead, we are offered an hour by train and three hours by bus,” explains the traveler. Her husband, tired as he is, admits that if there is a strike, “there must be a good reason”.
Highly mobilized refineries
At the airports, the air traffic controllers’ strike should cause disruptions and delays. Every fifth flight should be canceled in Paris-Orly south of the capital. In Paris-Roissy (North), according to the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, there should be enough non-striking staff to ensure the planned program.
The strike is expected to be very well attended, particularly at the refineries of giant TotalEnergies, which has 75 to 100 percent strikers, union CGT said on Tuesday morning.
“The shipment of products from TotalEnergies locations is interrupted today, but TotalEnergies will continue to supply its service station network and its customers,” assured the group’s management.
Already on January 19th and 26th, the employees in this area had been strongly mobilized: At that time, fuel deliveries had been blocked for 24 hours and strikes had at times affected up to 100% of the workforce at certain locations.
On the power side, the CGT and public company EDF’s website reported that the overnight strikes caused production cuts of “nearly 3000 MW,” the equivalent of three nuclear reactors. But without “any impact” on users, according to Fabrice Coudour, federal secretary of the union FNME-CGT.
A nationwide interprofessional strike notice was also filed for the entire civil service, where 28% of the strikers among the 2.5 million civil servants had been mobilized on the previous day of action on January 19, according to a figure from the ministry.
In schools, 50% of kindergarten and primary school teachers will strike, according to leading union Snuipp-FSU, who sees this as a sign of high levels of protest after the 70% rate of strikers hit on January 19.
“Significant”
Pension reform, a key project of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term, to which he campaigned for his first term, sees a lowering of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 and an acceleration of the increase in the retirement age prior to the contribution period.
President and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s popularity ratings have fallen five points in a month and a half to 36% and 31%, respectively, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
Despite growing rejection in public opinion, the executive remains stubborn: Emmanuel Macron considered the reform to be “indispensable” on Monday evening after Elisabeth Borne had assessed the shift in the legal departure age to 64 as “no longer negotiable”.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who plans to mobilize 11,000 police and gendarmes across France on Tuesday to monitor the demonstrators, for his part accuses the left-wing parties of “scramming” the debate in order to “systematically prevent the government from moving forward”. .
Mathilde Panot, president of the group La France insoumise (radical left) in the National Assembly, appreciates statements that translate “a certain fever of the majority”.
Around 7,000 amendments were tabled, including 6,000 from the left, against the reform, which some sixty parliamentarians began discussing in the Social Affairs Committee on Monday.
France is one of the European countries with the lowest statutory retirement age, although pension systems are not fully comparable. In Germany, Belgium or Spain there are 65, in Denmark 67, according to the Center for European and International Social Security Liaison, a French public body.
In response to the financial deterioration of pension funds and the aging of the population, the government has decided to increase working hours. He defends his project by presenting it as a “provider of social progress”, particularly by valorizing small pensions.