French demonstrators take to the streets for nationwide protest against the government’s pension reform plans

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Public transportation, schools and electricity, oil and gas supplies were disrupted in France as demonstrators numbering in the tens of thousands took to the streets Tuesday for a third round of nationwide strikes and protests against the government’s pension reform plans.

The demonstrations came a day after French lawmakers began debating a pension bill that would raise the minimum retirement from 62 to 64. The bill is the flagship legislation of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term.

Tens of thousands of people marched in the cities of Nice, Marseille, Toulouse and Nantes, and in other places across the country. An afternoon protest was set to take place in Paris.

Last week, an estimated 1.27 million people demonstrated, according to authorities, more than in the first big protest day on Jan. 19. More demonstrations, called by France’s eight main unions, were planned for Saturday.

Rail operator SNCF said train traffic was severely disrupted Tuesday across the country, including on its high-speed network. International lines to Britain and Switzerland were affected. The Paris metro was also disrupted.

Saad Kadiui, 37, a consulting cabinet chief who had to go through a disrupted Paris train station Tuesday, said he did not support the strikes, which he called “wearisome.” “There are other ways to protest over the pension reform,” he said.

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Kadiui supports the principle of the pension reform but wants the bill to be improved at parliament. “I think that for some jobs, 64 is too late,” he said.

Power producer EDF said the protest movement led to temporarily reduced electricity supplies, without causing blackouts. More than half of the workforce was on strike at the TotalEnergies refineries, according to the company.

A passenger waits at the Gare de Lyon station in Paris, France, on Feb. 7, 2023. The French parliament has started debating the president’s unpopular pension reform proposals, which prompted strikes in recent weeks.  (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

The Education Ministry said close to 13% of teachers were on strike, a decrease compared to last week’s protest day. A third of French regions were on scheduled school breaks.

Macron vowed to go ahead with the changes, despite opinion polls showing growing opposition. The bill would gradually increase the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 and accelerate a planned measure providing that people must have worked for at least 43 years to be entitled to a full pension, among other measures.

The government argues the changes are designed to keep the pension system financially afloat. France’s aging population is expected to plunge into the system into deficit in the coming decade.

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The debate at the National Assembly and the Senate is expected to last several weeks.

Opposition lawmakers have proposed more than 20,000 amendments to the bill debated on Monday, mostly by the left-wing Nupes coalition.

Philippe Martinez, secretary general of the powerful CGT union, called on the government and lawmakers to “listen to the people.” Speaking on French radio network RT, he denounced Macron’s attitude as “playing with fire,”

Macron wants to show that “he is able to pass a reform, no matter what’s the public opinion, what the citizens think,” Martinez asserted.

The head of the CFDT union, Laurent Berger, also called on the government to “listen” to the crowd that took to the streets. “One can only respond to social tension through the democratic exercise of power,” he told French newspaper La Croix.

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Rancor over the pension plan went beyond parliament’s raucous debate. The speaker of the lower house, the National Assembly, reported the bill triggering anonymous voicemails, graffiti and a threatening letter to the head of the chamber’s Social Affairs Committee.

“That’s enough,” Yael Braun-Pivet tweeted. “These acts are an attack on our democratic life. … We won’t tolerate it.”

Several lawmakers from the far-right National Rally party received voicemails during Monday’s debate saying that loved ones were hospitalized, in an apparent ploy to make them leave the assembly. The group’s leader, Marine Le Pen, said she was filing a legal complaint.