Protests intensify against pension age rise in France

• Hundreds of thousands of people are participating in marches around France.
• The first day of protests drew more than a million participants.
• Strikes affected schools, public transportation, and oil refineries.

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, is facing a second wave of strikes and protests over his proposals to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

The strike, which has affected schools, public transportation, and oil refineries, is being participated in by eight major unions.

Hundreds of thousands of people are participating in marches around France after the first day of protests drew more than a million participants.

There have been more people in several cities than on January 19.

Despite polls showing that two-thirds of French oppose the reforms, which start their journey through the National Assembly next week, the Macron administration is moving on with them.

Without a majority in the legislature, the administration will be forced to rely on the right-wing Republicans just as much as its own legislators from the ruling parties.

Thousands more marchers gathered in Toulouse, Marseille, and Nice in the south, Saint Nazaire, Nantes, and Rennes in the west, hours before the main demonstration in downtown Paris’ Place d’Italie.

The demonstrations, which were taking place in 200 towns and cities, were guarded by an estimated 11,000 police officers.

“Mr. Macron is certain to lose,” far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon told reporters in Marseille. “Nobody wants his reforms, and the more the days go by, by the greater the opposition to them.”

Karima, 62, held up a placard in Paris highlighting that the government’s plans hurt women far more than men: “Lots of us already have broken careers and will have to work even longer than men in order to have a full pension.”

There was severe disruption to transport, with one in three high-speed trains running and only two driverless metro lines operating normally in Paris. Large crowds were reported on one of the main overgrind lines in the capital.

The CGT union said at least three-quarters of workers had walked out at the big TotalEnergies oil refineries and fuel depots, although the company said the number was far lower.

Power plants reported reduced production after workers went on strike at the main electricity company EDF.

Although the administration claimed that just over a quarter of secondary school teachers had walked out, one of the major teachers’ organizations said that over 55% of them had.

High school students demonstrated in front of certain institutions, and they said that they would occupy Sciences Po in Paris to show their solidarity for the strikes.

“A lot of French people feel that working is more and more painful. It’s not that they don’t want to work, they don’t want to work in these conditions,” Sciences Po political scientist Bruno Palier told the Media.

The government has indicated it may move some way on the detail of the reform but has refused to give in on the main thrust of the raising the retirement age by two years to 64.

“Any kind of reform that is going to ask people to work longer will be unpopular, but we’ve been elected on this reform,” said Christopher Weissberg, an MP in President Macron’s Renaissance party.

The retirement age in France is 62, which is lower than it is in most of Western Europe. While Spain’s retirement age is 65 and the UK’s is 66, Italy and Germany have taken steps to raise the official retirement age to 67.

Only 1.7 workers in France contribute to the shared pension fund for each retiree, despite the fact that very few workers have personal pensions connected to capital investments.

“We have a universal system, and the system has to pay for itself. If not, it’s weakening and if it’s weakening, at some point, people will lose their pension,” Mr. Weissberg warned.

The reforms, according to economist Prof. Philippe Aghion, were required since France had a structural deficit of about €13 billion ($14 billion; £11 billion), and extending the retirement age would also assist raise the employment rate in France.

“That will give the government credibility to make some investments that it needs to make in schooling, in the hospital system that it needs to improve, and more investment in innovation and green industrialization,” he told the Media.

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