In the French capital Paris, a mass demonstration against raising the retirement age took place: tens of thousands of people marched from the Opera House to Place de la Bastille.
According to an RT correspondent in Paris, today, Tuesday, the unions are organizing a new movement of protests and strikes in various sectors: “Transport, education and the oil sector will continue tomorrow, Wednesday, and union protests will resume next Saturday. to ensure the mobilization of the largest number of demonstrators.
The protest action began at 14:30 from the Opera Square, tens of thousands of people took part in it, including representatives of various industries, representatives of the scientific community, doctors, leftist and youth organizations, supporters of the “yellow vest” movement.
Carrying the banners of the leading French trade unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa, Solidaires, FSU), the demonstrators chanted slogans “Retire at 60!”, “Macron, hands off our pensions”, “No reforms “Without universal consent”, “increasing wages, not the retirement age.”
As part of a protest against pension reform, the CGT union confirmed that strikers at the EDF Electricity Corporation cut electricity production overnight from Monday to Tuesday.
Earlier, demonstrations began in major French cities, Rennes, Montpellier, Marseille, Bordeaux and Strasbourg, today, Tuesday, more than 200 demonstrations will take place in France.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 11,000 police officers, 4,000 of them in Paris, would keep order at anti-pension reform demonstrations.
The demonstrations were accompanied by strikes in a number of sectors of the economy, the movement of trains in the Paris metro, suburban trains and high-speed trains between cities was paralyzed.
More than half of the workers at Total Energies’ refinery went on strike, disrupting oil production in France on Tuesday, and about a million educators are also on strike, according to BFMTV.
A majority of deputies in the National Assembly of France rejected the proposal of the coalition of the left forces of the Ecological and Social People’s Union to hold a referendum on the draft pension reform.
The French trade unions have already announced that they plan to hold the next nationwide demonstrations on Saturday 11 February.
On January 10, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born presented a draft of the controversial pension reform, which the government plans to adopt in 2023.
According to her, the authorities will begin to raise the retirement age in the country by three months annually from September 1, 2023, so by 2030 it will be 64 years.
The first nationwide strike against pension reform took place on 19 January. On this day, at the call of eight leading trade unions in France, more than 200 demonstrations were organized, more than a million people were arrested, including 80 thousand in Paris, 38 people.
The second nationwide strike against raising the retirement age, which took place on January 31, was attended by 2.8 million people, of which 87,000 were in Paris, according to the WSTP trade unions.
Source: RT
