Workers turned up the heat on French President Nicolas Sarkozy by staging a fresh one-day strike yesterday and voting on whether to turn their protest against his pension reform into an indefinite stoppage.
In the fourth major action against the government reforms in just more than a month, transport workers, teachers and civil servants stopped work in a bid to halt the reforms, a cornerstone of Sarkozy’s program.
Millions have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest and hundreds of thousands were expected to join the marches yesterday in Paris and in cities across France, with a further day of street protests planned for Saturday.
However, the reform bill is edging closer to becoming law, and late on Monday French senators passed another key measure, raising the age for a full state pension from 65 to 67. The lower house of parliament has already approved hiking the retirement age from 60 to 62, the most hotly contested measure.
Francois Chereque, the leader of the powerful CFDT union, said he expected a massive turnout at yesterday’s marches because this was “one of the last opportunities” to protest against the reforms.
“The government is today provoking this radicalization,” he told France 2 television.
Aviation and railway officials have warned travelers to expect serious disruption to air and rail traffic.
Up to half the flights to and from Paris Orly airport and one in three at Charles de Gaulle and Paris Beauvais were cancelled. Just one in three TGV high-speed trains was running although Eurostar trains between Paris and London were due to operate normally.
Many Paris commuter trains were cancelled, but buses were operating normally and metro services were also less affected. Pension reform has turned into the biggest battle in Sarkozy’s presidency and the right-wing leader’s poll ratings are at rock-bottom.
But his government has stuck to the reform plans.
“We’re not here to do what’s easy, we don’t always have the people’s approval,” French Labor Minister Eric Woerth told the senators debating the bill.
“It’s difficult to tell the French that they have to work more, up to 67 years, but it has to be done,” he said.
This time some unions have raised the stakes, with threats to prolong the strikes beyond yesterday.
However, it was unclear how many workers would vote to extend their action. All the rail unions voted to ballot their members on an open-ended strike, but teachers and truckers were only planning to strike yesterday.
Union leaders have also appealed to school and university students to join them in the streets — a tactic denounced by Woerth as “totally irresponsible.”
A two-week-old strike at oil terminals in Marseille against port reforms has added to the pressure on the government, with fears that fuel shortages could soon reach refineries.
A CSA opinion poll released on Sunday showed the president’s approval rating dropping one point to 31 percent, his lowest since his election in 2007.
However, the pensions bill is a key plank of Sarkozy’s reform agenda as he eyes re-election in 2012 and tries to rein in France’s big public deficit.
The senate’s deliberations are due to last until Friday and the government hopes for the reform to be passed in its entirety by the end of the month.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese