- Paul Kirby
- BBC News
Protest marches were held in cities across France, including the southern city of Nice
A nationwide strike has begun in France as part of a second wave of protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Eight major unions are taking part in the strike, which has disrupted schools, public transport and oil refineries.
Protests are taking place across France, after more than a million people took part in the first day they were banned.
Unions said half of the country’s teachers had joined the strike, while the Education Ministry said the number was just over a quarter.
Macron’s government is pushing ahead with raising the retirement age, despite opinion polls indicating that two-thirds of respondents oppose the changes, which will be presented to the National Assembly next week.
Without a majority in parliament, the government will have to rely on right-wing republicans for support, just as the ruling party lawmakers themselves.
Before the main protest in Paris, thousands of demonstrators turned out in Toulouse, Marseille and Nice in the south, and Saint-Nazaire, Nantes and Rennes in the west.
Street protests were expected in at least 200 towns and cities, and 11,000 police were deployed to counter the demonstrations.
The numbers of demonstrators in several cities were said to be higher than during the first national general strike 12 days earlier.
A 58-year-old demonstrator, Thierry, told Le Figaro newspaper that he started working at the age of 18 and feels unfair if the retirement age is extended for a longer period.
Left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon told reporters in Marseille: “Macron will certainly lose. Nobody wants his reforms, and the more days pass, the more opposition to these reforms.”
And there was severe disruption to traffic, as only one in three high-speed trains and two driverless metro lines in the capital, Paris, were operating normally. Reports indicated large crowds on one of the capital’s main train lines.
The General Confederation of Labor said at least three-quarters of workers at Total Energy’s large oil refineries and fuel depots left their jobs to take part in the strike, although the company said the number was much lower.
Power stations reported lower production after workers at the main EDF company went on strike.
image copyright Reuters
High school students took part in the protests on Tuesday in support of the strikers
One of the major teachers’ unions said that about 55 percent of secondary school teachers had taken part in the strike. Secondary school students staged protests outside some schools, and students said they would sit-in at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris in support of the strikers.
Bruno Baller, professor of political science at the Institute of Political Studies, told the BBC: “Many French people feel that work has become more painful. This does not mean that they do not want to work, but they do not want to work in such conditions.”
The government indicated that it might move in some way on the details of the reform, but refused to give up on the main thrust to raise the retirement age by two years to 64 years.
“Any kind of reform that requires people to work longer will be unpopular, but we were elected after announcing our intention to carry out this reform,” said Christopher Weisberg, an MP for President Macron’s Ennahda party.
The retirement age in France is 62, which is lower than most other countries in Western Europe. Italy and Germany tended to raise the official retirement age to 67 years, while the retirement age in Spain is 65 years, and in the United Kingdom it is 66 years.
“We have a global pension system, and that system has to pay for itself,” Weisberg said. “And if that doesn’t happen, it will weaken, and if it weakens, people will lose their pensions at some point.”
Economist Philippe Aghion said the reforms are necessary because France has a structural deficit of about 13 billion euros ($14 billion), and raising the retirement age will also help increase France’s employment rate.
“It will give the government credibility to make some of the investments it needs in education, in the hospital system that needs to be developed, and to invest more in innovation and green manufacturing,” he told the BBC.
