France’s transport and school networks were disrupted by a nationwide strike on Thursday as unions mounted opposition to President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
In Paris, metro and commuter trains have reduced services, while around 20 percent of flights were canceled at Orly airport. National rail service SNCF is running one-third of trains on high-speed lines, while some Eurostar trains to and from London have been canceled and ferry links out of Calais have been hit by port strikes.
About 70 percent of primary school teachers have given notice of their intention to strike, which will lead to the closure of a third of primary schools in Paris, according to Snuipp-FSU unity.
The disruption is likely to continue in the coming weeks as the government seeks to push a draft law on pension reform through parliament at the end of March. Union leaders said they wanted to reach the symbolic bar of a million protesters who took part in 215 demonstrations from Lille in the north to Cannes on the Mediterranean coast. He is expected to announce on Thursday night whether the strike will continue.
“This is the first day, there will be more,” Philippe Martinez, head of the far-left CGT union, told Public Sénat television.
The battle will be a test of Macron’s reformist credentials and a key moment in his second term. He said the state’s pension system, which relies on the current workforce to fund retiree benefits, must be changed to ensure its viability as the population ages. In line with his pro-business economic stance, he has ruled out other approaches, such as raising taxes or cutting pensions.
At this stage, parliament looks set to pass the bill as the conservative Les Républicains have indicated their willingness to vote with Macron’s centrist alliance, so the fight could take place in the streets.
Facing protests when trying to change pension rules has become a rite of passage for new French presidents. Since Socialist François Mitterrand lowered the retirement age from 65 to 60 in the early 1980s, successive leaders have faced resistance as they tried to change a system that the French consider an inviolable right.
An Ipsos poll published on Wednesday found that 61 percent of respondents oppose Macron’s proposed reforms on the grounds that they are unnecessary, poorly designed or untimely. But 81 percent admitted in a separate question that the system needs to be changed.
“Public support for protest movements against pensions has historically been strong, and usually remains so despite disruptions in everyday life, unless there is violence,” said Jérôme Fourquet, pollster and author at the polling agency Ifop.
Macron is trying to overhaul pensions in 2019 when he presents the more ambitious idea of moving to a single points-based system for all workers rather than having multiple schemes. He faced a two-month transport strike before abandoning the idea during the Covid-19 pandemic.
This time, the government has opted for a simpler set of tweaks that translate into French should work for two more years. The proposal would change the retirement age and another parameter that determines the size of the pension, which is the overall time a person must pay into the system to qualify for a full pension.
Under the new plan, people would have to be 64 before they could retire (except for some who started working at a young age) and would need 43 years of contributions, instead of about 41 now.
Opponents of the changes, including the left-wing political alliance Nupes and the far-right Rassemblement National, argue that they are unfair because blue-collar workers will find it harder because they often enter the workforce earlier.