French strike over pension plan

797,000 protest proposal to raise retirement age two years to 62

Steelworkers from the Fos-sur-Mer ArcelorMittal plant join a protest Thursday in Marseille in southern France.
Steelworkers from the Fos-sur-Mer ArcelorMittal plant join a protest Thursday in Marseille in southern France.

— Trains stood still and children played instead of studied as workers around France went on strike Thursday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 62.

Walkouts by drivers delayed or canceled trains from Italy and Switzerland. Some flights were dropped or delayed.

Boisterous crowds of protesters filled Marseille’s port and wide Paris avenues as unions staged nearly 200 marches in several cities over a broad overhaul to the money-losing pension system, part of efforts around Europe to cut back on growing public debts.

“Sarkozy, Don’t Touch our Pensions!” read one banner at the Paris march, near a cardboard coffin marked: “Here lies Roger. He’s 60, and he died before getting his retirement.”

The ranks of demonstrators swelled in comparison with a similar protest May 27. The Interior Ministry put the number of protesters around France at 797,000, double the number of people in the streets in May.

Police say 47,000 people marched in the French capital, while the powerful CGT union put the number at 130,000.

“It’s a rather strong mobilization,” Labor Minister Eric Woerth said on RTL radio. “But the reform is ambitious.”

Prime Minister Francois Fillon was expected to address the subject of retirement age at a news conference today.

Sarkozy, meanwhile, is canceling the annual garden party for Bastille Day on July 14, citing the high cost of the event.

France has one of Europe’s lowest retirement ages, allowing workers to retire at 60 in most sectors.

The government said the change to the money-losing pension system is an “obligation,” given France’s burgeoning deficit and its aging population.

Unions have said money for the pension system should come from higher taxes or charges on those who are still working, and see cost-cutting in the pension system as an attack on a hard-fought way of life.

Sebastien Sihr, secretary general of the SNUipp union, called the overhaul “a step backward.”

“They are refusing to imagine other sources of funding,” he said at the Paris march, where a crowd of thousands whistled and cheered, waving red, white and blue balloons under a hot summer sun. Vuvuzellas, the South African horns the world has become familiar with at the World Cup, made their appearance on French streets.

Commuters, meanwhile, made do, some cramming into sweaty, overcrowded buses and subway trains.

Hundreds of passengers were stranded at Rome’s main train station Wednesday when the overnight train to Paris was canceled because of the strike.

Authorities were putting the passengers on buses instead.

Swiss national railway company SBB said about 60 percent of trains between France and Switzerland have been canceled because of the strike.

The French civil aviation authority, DGAC, asked airlines to cancel 15 percent of their flights out of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports because of strikes by air traffic controllers.

Air France said long-haul flights would remain unaffected.

Commuter Stephanie Larcher, a 29-year-old town planner from Buressuryvette, in the outskirts of Paris, said she’s had to add an extra hour onto her daily fourhour journey.

“I find it completely irritating, especially because train workers go on strike for any little thing,” she said.

However, Nathalie Arthaud, head of the leftist party Lutte Ouvriere, denounced “this world of the rich, ministers, cigars, private jets. It’s the same government that tells us to work longer. It’s revolting.”

About 20 percent of French teachers went on strike, the Education Ministry said.

Utility workers, postal workers, dock workers, workers at plane maker Airbus and some hospital workers also took part in the one-day walkout.

The French pension change pales in comparison with higher retirement ages elsewhere in Europe.

Germany, for example, plans to gradually raise its retirement age from 65 to 67, starting in 2012.

Bernadette Douisson, secretary-general of the FSU union, said the French government’s real concern should be boosting employment in a country where high numbers of youths and senior citizens can’t get jobs.

Woerth, the labor minister, says said the change will save the equivalent of nearly $29.3 billion in 2018 and should bring the pension system back into the black that year.

The change is scheduled to be instituted progressively, stretching out the number of years people have to work to win full pension payments.

The Cabinet is to discuss the proposals in July, and they’re expected to go before the parliament next fall.

Information for this article was contributed by Jean-Marie Godard, Victor Simpson and Eliane Engeler of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 06/25/2010

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