Trade unions led an eighth round of street protests across France on Saturday to show their anger at a rise in the retirement age, but turnout plunged from the peaks seen before parliament adopted the reform last month.
Unity wavered as the large CFDT union said it was time to recognize the government would not back down now, but the more militant CGT vowed to keep fighting.
“We will do everything we can to prevent these new measures taking effect,” said CGT boss Bernard Thibault, adding that 8,500 people had joined his organization since the protests began in earnest two months ago.
Photo: EPA
French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s flagship reform will raise the minimum and fully pensionable retirement ages by two years, to 62 and 67 respectively. Passed by parliament on Oct. 27, it is awaiting what is expected to be a hitch-free clearance from the Constitutional Council before Sarkozy can sign it into law.
At their height last month, the French protests were the biggest in Europe against austerity measures adopted by many governments to cut debt and budget deficits in the wake of the global economic crisis.
However, government and union counts showed Saturday’s turnout was down by about two-thirds from the middle of last month — at 375,000 versus a peak 1.2 million on the government estimate, and 1.2 million versus a peak 3.5 million according to the unions.
Cynthia Lerenard, a 22-year-old student demonstrating in Lyon, denounced Sarkozy’s style as much as his reform.
“I’m here against the pension reform, but I am also against the dictatorial methods of all the -government reforms. He does not listen to people,” she said.
Sarkozy has refused to back down despite eight days of mass protests and strikes since September that at one stage caused serious fuel shortages, transport disruption and sporadic violence.
While the change is opposed by between two-thirds and three--quarters of French people according to opinion polls, a climbdown would have left Sarkozy’s presidency in ruins. He swept to power in 2007 on promises of a break with past inertia.
His stand triggered an unusually strong show of union solidarity throughout weeks of protests, 24-hour stoppages and rolling strikes at railways and oil refineries.
However, that unity is fraying, with the moderate CFDT signaling on the eve of Saturday’s marches that the aim of the protests had changed.
“If I said today ‘we’re going to force the president into retreat,’ nobody would believe me. They’d say ‘he’s dreaming,’” CFDT leader Francois Chereque said.
Addressing young people’s fears they will lose job-start opportunities if older people stay in work longer, Chereque says he wants employers to open discussions now about ways to boost employment at both ends of the spectrum.
Thibault is under heavier pressure to keep to a harder line. CGT bosses further down the chain fronted rolling strikes at oil refineries at the height of the protest movement, a move he had not overtly sought. The government says the reform is needed to balance finances because the number of pensioners surges relative to the number of working people whose taxes fund their retirement. Unions are to meet again today to take stock.
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