FRANCE: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators - more than a million according to trade unions - marched through the streets of France yesterday to protest against Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's proposed reform of the French pension system. Lara Marlowe reports from Reims.
A draft law presented to the government on May 7th would slowly raise the number of years French employees must work for full retirement benefits from the present minimum of 37.5 to 42 years by 2020.
Popularly known as "Black Tuesday", yesterday's general strike was the most widely followed in 7½ years. It paralysed the country from 8 p.m. on Monday until 8 a.m. today. All buses and underground trains stopped in the capital. Across the country, schools closed, newspapers were not printed, highway toll booths were left unmanned and postal deliveries stopped. Eighty per cent of all flights were cancelled and only one in three TGV high-speed trains ran. The cross-Channel Eurostar, however, continued normal service.
A quarter of a million people marched in Paris, from the Place de la République to the Place Denfert-Rochereau. Teachers, civil servants, doctors and nurses were prominent in the cortege, which started in mid-morning and ended at 5 p.m. "Private or public sector; 37 years for everyone and not a day more," was the principal slogan.
In Marseilles, 150,000 marched in a carnival atmosphere. "It's hard to run after delinquents when you're over 55," a marching policeman told TF1 television. Demonstrations were held in 115 cities, with turn-outs of 25,000 in Nantes and 20,000 in Lyon.
The strike was declared a success by trade unions, and Mr Bernard Thibault, the head of the communist CGT, called for a national march on Sunday May 25th, prior to another cabinet meeting devoted to the reform. "We call on everyone to come to Paris on the 25th - families, young and old," he said.
In December 1995, transport strikes against reform of the public sector pension system doomed the right-wing government of Mr Alain Juppé. The public sector employs nearly a third of French wage-earners, who enjoy better retirement conditions than the private sector. Mr Raffarin had hoped to avoid crisis by shelving the issue for his first year in office, and by promising government employees their system would not be touched - for the time being.
In a related and equally explosive issue, the budget minister, Mr Alain Lambert, admitted this week that the government intends not to replace one in two retiring civil servants. France's powerful teachers' unions have rejected attempts to "decentralise" 100,000 Ministry of Education jobs outside Paris.
The government-run French pension system is virtually bankrupt. French voters recognise the urgency of reform, yet refuse to accept a diminution of benefits. Public opinion is fiercely opposed to abandoning the "solidarity between generations" upon which the system is based. Ms Marie-Georges Buffet, a former communist minister, yesterday accused the government of attempting to force the French into "Anglo-Saxon" style private pension systems.
The government's position is also contradictory. Mr Raffarin wants people to work longer, yet most French companies do not want to employ workers over 55.