PARIS, Mar 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – Some 1.28 million people protested across France yesterday, against the government’s pension reform plan, the French Ministry of the Interior said. This represented a record number, since the nationwide mobilisation began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, according to France’s largest union, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT in French), the estimated number of people marching nationally against the reforms stood much higher: at 3.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday, the French national railway company, SNCF, only ran one in five high-speed trains, with other train services also heavily disrupted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Greater Paris region, only one in three trains was running, on most metro lines during morning and evening peak hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fuel shipments were also suspended, in all refineries across France yesterday, but fuel suppliers said, there would not be a severe impact on service stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The strike started everywhere … with shipments blocked at the exits of all the refineries this morning,” the French daily newspaper Le Figaro reported yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, about half of the employees at French electric giant, EDF, downed tools yesterday, in solidarity with the protests, the company’s management said last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CGT’s energy and mine sector said that, some 80,000 people working in the energy and gas industries went on strike yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All public service sectors have already announced an extension of the strikes today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Major French unions held an emergency meeting in Paris last night, where they agreed on two fresh demonstrations on Mar 11 and 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also requested a meeting with French President, Emmanuel Macron. “Six huge mobilisations have received no response, it cannot go on,” the unions said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During questioning of French labour minister, Olivier Dussopt, in the National Assembly yesterday, he defended the government’s pension reform plan as “necessary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The French pension system is “heavily and structurally” in debt, he said, and the deficit could reach as much as 13.5 billion euros (14.2 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, a reform that requires people to work two extra years is necessary to preserve the whole French pension system, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, laid out details of the pension reform plan in Jan, under which the legal retirement age will be progressively raised by three months a year from 62 to 64 by 2030, and a guaranteed minimum pension will be introduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the plan, as from 2027 at least 43 years of work would be required to be eligible for a full pension.– NNN-XINHUA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS, Mar 8 (NNN-XINHUA) – Some 1.28 million people protested across France yesterday, against the government’s pension reform plan, the French Ministry of the Interior said. This represented a record number, since the nationwide mobilisation began. However, according to France’s largest union, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT in French), the estimated number of people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":213620,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[300,209,286],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213618"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213619,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213618\/revisions\/213619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/213620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}