A day after the unsuccessful talks between the French government and the unions over the pension dispute, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest. Individual riots broke out in Paris, Lyon and Nantes on Thursday afternoon.
According to the authorities, 570,000 people took part in demonstrations against the gradual increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. According to the Interior Ministry, there were 740,000 in the past week. The unions spoke on Thursday of almost two million participants.
Demonstrators reportedly blocked access to part of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. There were also blockades on roads and various universities in the country. According to media reports, shops in Lyon were damaged. In Nantes, the police used tear gas in clashes. The atmosphere in Rennes was also tense.
Protest against Blackrock in Paris
Even before the march in Paris started, opponents of the pension reform broke into a company building. Videos showed them lighting Bengal fires and chanting chants. “It takes money to finance our pension system. There is some here,” a spokesman for the railway workers’ union CGT Cheminots called into the megaphone, according to the newspaper “Le Parisien”. “Instead of taking two years of life from workers, Macron should look for it here.”
US asset manager Blackrock, who did not comment when asked, is also in the building. In the first term of office of French President Emmanuel Macron, Blackrock had become a kind of enemy during the strikes and protests against the pension reforms planned at the time. Blackrock has not played a role in the current protests.
Macron’s controversial pension reform has now been decided. He and the middle government want to prevent a hole in the pension fund. The trade unions and large parts of the opposition reject the reform as unfair.
Currently, the retirement age in France is 62 years. In fact, retirement begins later on average: those who have not paid in long enough to receive a full pension work longer. At the age of 67 there is then a pension without any deductions, regardless of how long it has been paid in – the government intends to keep this, even if the number of years required to pay in for a full pension is to increase more quickly. She wants to increase the monthly minimum pension to around 1,200 euros.
Unions are calling for the reform to be withdrawn
In the dispute over the reform, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne met the unions on Wednesday. They later declared the talks a failure. Borne did not comply with her request to withdraw the reform. Rather, the government would like to discuss other issues in the world of work with the trade unions.
The pension reform has not yet come into force. Macron wants this to happen by the end of the year. The project is currently being examined by the Constitutional Council. MPs, senators and Borne had called the authority to examine the text and examine the government’s actions.
Parts of the opposition complained that the government packaged the reform in a budget text and sent it through parliament in an accelerated procedure. The Constitutional Council can overturn part or all of the reform or declare it constitutional. Next week Friday he wants to announce his decision. For the previous Thursday, the unions called for renewed protests.
