Death Threats Used to Fight Macron Pension Plan as Strikes Fade

(Bloomberg) -- Death threats, random power cuts, tossed boots and blockades.

Those are the methods being used by hard-line French unions protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform as a record-long transport strike fizzles out and a bill on the new system heads to parliament.

The country is “seeing violent behavior, blockades and sometimes acts that are completely opposed to the spirit of public service, totally illegal and, in reality, totally unacceptable,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told the French Senate on Wednesday.

With the transport strike that hit the Paris region particularly hard all but over, the government has been emboldened. It will press ahead with its project for a universal pension plan, presenting a bill in a cabinet meeting on Friday.

Pushing through the reform will be a major win for Macron, who will have shaken up a special-regimes system, especially in the public sector, that allowed some people to retire in their early 50s. He will have succeeded where his predecessors failed.

Radical Action

Frustrated at concessions made by their more moderate counterparts, far-left unions -- especially the largest public sector group, CGT -- have hit out.

On Tuesday, the Paris headquarters of the moderate CFDT union were stormed by activists from more militant groups. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin received death threats in letters that included bullets, a spokesman for the ministries said.

Units of the communist-backed CGT union cut off power in parts of the country, such as around Paris’ Orly airport, impacting local inhabitants and businesses, and shut down France’s largest hydro-power plant. Sewage workers, teachers and other public servants downed their tools in front of the finance ministry.

Some universities -- in Tours and Paris -- were barricaded and some roads in Normandy were blocked, prompting the police to intervene, Agence France-Presse reported.

Punishment Sought

CGT, which has been at the forefront of the strikes and has demanded that the reforms be abandoned, said it plans similar actions in coming days.

“These are targeted actions; we don’t target citizens, even if there could be some collateral damage,” the CGT’s leader Philippe Martinez said on BFM TV on Wednesday. “It’s not destroying the economy.”

The government will push ahead with the reforms that seek to merge about 42 different regimes into one points-based system, Prime Minister Philippe told the National Assembly on Tuesday, adding that all protests deemed illegal will be punished.

Two employees from power distribution group Enedis, a unit of EDF SA, were placed in custody for cutting power to a high-risk industrial plant in Dordogne, south of France, according to AFP. More could face legal action.

‘We Massacre’

Following seven weeks of disruptions, French railways and the Paris metro have resumed operations, while turnout in recent street demonstrations has been falling.

That’s after Philippe made temporary concessions on the retirement age, prompting France’s biggest private sector union CFDT to suspend its strike. Discussions on pension details are ongoing.

Macron should take into account opposition to his reforms and withdraw the proposals, according to 61% of the French surveyed in an Elabe poll published on Wednesday.

Still, the pension bill will be reviewed during a cabinet meeting on Friday before being sent to parliament for debate.

Hard-line unions say they won’t give up easily.

“Either you convince Macron that this is enough, that he spikes his reform, or we massacre,” according to one of the death-threat letters sent to the finance and budget ministers.

--With assistance from James Regan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Geraldine Amiel in Paris at gamiel@bloomberg.net;Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net

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