French protesters prepare last-ditch bid to stop pension overhaul
Global News
President Emmanuel Macron's decision to force the reform through with special constitutional powers prompted angry protests this spring.
French unions are staging on Tuesday a 14th day of protests against government plans to raise the retirement age to 64, in what could be a final attempt to pressure lawmakers into scrapping a law that is already on the statute books.
President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to force the reform through with special constitutional powers prompted angry protests this spring, but the issue has slowly moved down the media agenda, making it harder for unions to mobilise.
“Protests have been going on for six months, it’s unprecedented,” Sophie Binet, the new leader of the hardline CGT union said on BFM TV. “There’s a lot of anger but also fatigue,” she said, adding that strikers were feeling the pinch on paychecks.
Binet nevertheless banked on an “extremely high” level of mobilization on Tuesday and said the CGT union was prepared to keep up the fight against the reform in the coming weeks.
Macron is now enjoying a timid rebound in opinion polls, having launched a PR blitz after the reform passed that saw him crisscross the country to confront public anger but also to announce big investments in new technologies.
Between 400,000 and 600,000 people are expected to turn out at protests across France, authorities said, which would be down from more than a million who took part in marches at the height of the pension protests earlier this year.
Inter-city trains are likely to be only “slightly disrupted”, the SNCF railway company said, while the metro network in Paris will run a normal service. One-third of flights out of Paris-Orly airport have been cancelled, however.
“This is likely to be one of the last days of protests against the reform,” Laurent Berger, the leader of the more moderate CFDT union told Europe 1 radio.