French Unions to Extend Protests as Sarkozy Digs in on Pensions

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- French strikers are extending their protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed overhaul of the pension system as the government rebuffed calls to drop its plan to increase the retirement age.

The Paris metro and long-distance trains will be disrupted for a second day after some unions opted to stay off the job, as did port workers in Marseille. The government said it won’t back down on a plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60, saying it’s necessary to save the pension system. ture religion jeans

“It’s impossible for Sarkozy for back down, and the unions have equally dug themselves in,” Laurent Dubois, a professor at Paris’s Institute of Political Studies, said in a telephone interview. “The strikes will certainly last into next week, and maybe beyond.”

Across France, 1.23 million people marched in protests yesterday, police said, up from 997,000 during the previous day of demonstrations, which took place on a Saturday, Oct. 2, and didn’t involve strikes. The CFDT union said 3.5 million people marched, ture religion outlet up from 2.9 million. Yesterday’s protest was the fourth against the proposed pension changes in five weeks. Unions plan more demonstrations Oct. 16.

The bill has been approved by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, while the Senate is still debating the measure and has approved some key planks, such as raising the minimum age for a pension to 62 and the age for a full pension to 67 from 65.

“We are determined to carry out these measures because they are reasonable, ture religion jeans store because they are just,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in parliament yesterday. “Above all, we are determined to carry on because they are essential to finance the retirements of our citizens.”

Pension Deficit

The government says the changes are needed to help France cope with an aging population and balance the pension system’s budget by 2018. Narrowing the pension shortfall is part of the government’s struggle to cut the budget deficit. ture religion jeans outlet This year, the gap will stand at 7.7 percent of gross domestic product, and Sarkozy’s ministers plan to reduce it to 92 billion euros ($127 billion), or 6 percent of GDP, next year.

The government has made some changes to the pension bill to allow people in hardship jobs who started working as teenagers, as well as women who had three children, to continue retiring early. Unions have said the changes were insufficient. cheap jeans store

The Paris metro will probably run at about half service today, as it did yesterday. The national rail company, SNCF, said about one of every three trains will run today, about the same as yesterday. Eurostar service to London will run normally while 80 percent Thalys trains to Brussels will run.