PARIS, (Reuters) – Huge crowds marched across France yesterday 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 Macron says is “vital” to ensuring the viability of the pension system.
The French Interior ministry said that a total of 1.272 million people took part in the protests nationwide, up slightly from the first nationwide demonstration on Jan 19. In Paris, a total of 87,000 people marched, compared to 80,000 on Jan. 19, it added.
“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.
Union leaders at a joint news conference at the end of the march said they would organise more strikes and demonstrations against the reform on Feb. 7 and 11.
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 the 19th as a cost-of-living crisis makes it harder to skip a day’s pay.
