Stir against Sarkozy reform move

FRENCH workers took to the streets yesterday to challenge President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age, the centrepiece of his reform agenda as he prepares to seek re-election.

Unions called the showdown over Sarkozy's pensions bill, a reform which the right-wing president insists he will push through as an "absolute priority" and which was to be presented to parliament later in the day.

Sarkozy told lawmakers from his majority UMP party they must remain "firm" in their defence of raising the retirement age to 62, a party official said.

Strikers hope to match a similar protest on June 24, when between 800,000 and two million marched, and initial reports from provincial town and cities ahead of the main Paris march suggested they were on course to do so.

By midday 450,000 people had already taken part in rallies around France, according to the interior ministry, around about the same total given by officials at the same point in June.

Estimates of strikers in the public sector showed higher numbers taking part with, for example, at least 28 per cent of secondary school teachers off compared to 10 per cent in June, according to government figures.

Schools, the national rail network, some public services and domestic air services were severely disrupted, and passengers complained of long delays on commuter train services and metros into Paris.

"We can see that employees are mobilised," Francois Chereque, leader of the CFDT union, told RTL radio, predicting that the turn-out would match or more likely exceed that of June. "It looks like a success."

Bernard Thibault, head of the larger CGT union, warned on Europe 1 radio: "If we don't get a hearing there will be further steps to this mobilisation, and nothing has been ruled out."

Ministers had done little to lower the temperature in the run-up to the day of action, insisting pension reform is necessary and there will be no retreat on raising the minimum retirement age to 62 by 2018. The government argues this could save US$90 billion by 2030 at a time when France's public deficit — at around eight per cent of GDP — is well above the eurozone target of three percent.

"If we don't do anything the deficit in the pension system will hit 20 billion euros in 2010, 45 in 2020 and probably 70 in 2030," Jean-Francois Cope, the leader of the UMP in the National Assembly, told Le Figaro.

"All the reports conclude we're heading to this dead end, and all the other European countries have faced up to this by raising legal retirement to 65 or even to 67 like in Germany, Scandinavia and Spain," he said.

At 62, the minimum retirement age would still be well under the average of around 64 in the OECD group of wealthy democracies, despite France having one of the world's longest life expectancies.

AFP