France lives a day of massive protests against pension reform with blockages and delays in transport

The bone the strikers blocked this Tuesday the fuel production from all refineries in Franceas good as traffic on access roads of certain cities in a day of strikes and demonstrations which should force the government to reconsider its rpension reform.

“The objective is for the government to withdraw its reform project”repeated the secretary general of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Philippe Martinezin an interview this morning on the radio France Infoin which he pointed out that with this sixth day of protests “a new phase” has entered.

Martínez, head of the country’s second central, stressed that the common motto of all unions in this new phase that begins today is “paralyze the country”.

This means – he specified – disruptions in transport, electricity, gas, garbage collection but also “strikes in the private sector”.

Asked about the extension of the strikes on Wednesday and the following days, Martínez clarified that it is not he who decides, but the workers of each company. But at the same time he checked that it had already been voted, for example, in the railway company SNCFin energy or in ports.

Above all, he underlined that the responsibility lies with the Government which “provokes the social movement” by turning a deaf ear to the “91% of workers, who say it’s not a good reform”.

The President’s Executive Bill Emmanuel Macronwhich is the subject of a parliamentary procedure – currently in the Senate -, provides in particular for the postponement of the minimum retirement age for 62 years old currently at 64 and an acceleration of the extension of the contribution period which gives the right to a full-rate pension until 43 years.

Around 320 demonstrations are gathered today throughout France, where police intelligence services are waiting between 1.1 and 1.4 million people. That is to say that the 1.27 million of January 31 could be exceeded (again according to the Ministry of the Interior), which so far has been the most massive.

Strikes are becoming very visible on public transport. There SNCF had to cancel on average the 80% of high-speed trains (TGV) and virtually all other long-distance conventional trains.

On international lines, there is no service on the Paris-Barcelona corridor or on the lines between France and Germany; a single round-trip train on the connections with Italy, and a 20% of the usual ones in the connections with Switzerland.

Two thirds of the Eurostars with London work and also two thirds of the Thalys which go from Paris to Brussels. In the vicinity of Paris, depending on the lines, there are between a third and a fifth of the usual convoys. In the capital’s metro, there is only normal service on the two automatic lines, 1 and 14. The others run barely at half speed and only during rush hour.

In air transport, the controllers’ strike forced the abolition of the 20% of Charles de Gaulle flights and 30% at the other Paris airport, as well as at Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse.

(With information from EFE)

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