Mass French Strikes Over Pension Reform to Disrupt Nationwide Transport 

(Bloomberg) --

President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to overhaul France’s pension system was tested by a second day of labor protests across the country and the continued partial-paralysis of the Paris public transit system.

Participation in the street marches fell on Tuesday by more than half to 339,000, according to Interior Ministry figures, compared with more than 800,000 last Thursday in what was the biggest turnout in a protest against Macron since he took office in May 2017.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is due to lay out on Wednesday the government’s proposals for the reform, which he called on Twitter a “plan for a simpler, fairer retirement for everyone.”

The CGT union, which estimated Tuesday’s turnout at 1 million compared with 1.5 million on Dec. 5, called for two more days of marches on Thursday and Dec. 17 in an effort to get Macron to back down.

Public sector disruptions continued as a strike by transport workers entered its sixth day, shutting down the majority of metro lines in Paris and preventing around four-fifths of trains from running nationwide. Around three-quarters of trains are expected to be canceled on Wednesday.

Reforming France’s pension system has proven a treacherous task for former French leaders. In 1995, then Prime Minister Alain Juppe abandoned his plans after strikes paralyzed the country for about a month.

Philippe, who worked on Juppe’s failed run for president in 2017, says the government will not budge this time.

“If we do not make a profound, serious, progressive reform today, then someone else will make a truly brutal one tomorrow,” he said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday.

But unions are refusing to blink. In the same newspaper, Philippe Martinez said the leftist CGT union he leads will continue striking until the government withdraws the reform.

“In 1995, at the start of the protests, Juppe said he would never withdraw his plan. Things change fast and there’s a lot of anger,” Martinez said.

According to a survey by Ifop Dec. 6 and Dec. 7, 53% of French people support or have sympathy for the protesters. An Ifop poll published on Tuesday based on a survey of 1,001 adults carried out after the first day of marches last week showed Macron’s approval rating slipped by a point for the third consecutive month to 35%.

Limited Impact

The Paris police ordered shopkeepers along the route of Tuesday’s march to shutter and protect their stores from potential looting. French civil-aviation authority DGAC asked airlines to reduce their schedules by 20%, and Air France said it would cancel 25% of its domestic flights.

Before Tuesday, the protests had had limited economic impact, according to the government. While tourist cancellations are a concern, shops around the country had a good weekend of sales, Junior Economy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on French TV channel CNews on Monday.

“One day of strikes doesn’t tip retailers into a difficult situation,” she said. “If it goes on, making it hard for customers to get to shops, it could bring down revenues.”

Macron’s pension overhaul aims to create a universal points-based system to replace France’s 42 different pension regimes for different classes of workers. The 41-year-old president argues France’s current system is unfair and inapt for the 21st-century economy, in which workers change sectors during their careers.

In an effort to find common ground, ministers met with unions for a last round of talks on Monday. The government says it wants to make the transition to a new system gradual and fair, without delaying it for decades.

“I’m sure we will find the right point of balance that will reassure workers about their future, without giving up on our determination to push the country toward the future by putting in place a universal system,” Philippe said last week after the first round of marches.

To contact the reporters on this story: William Horobin in Paris at whorobin@bloomberg.net;James Regan in Paris at jregan65@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Geraldine Amiel at gamiel@bloomberg.net, Tara Patel

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