The French government offered little hope of a compromise, however slight, over its disputed pension reforms despite growing industrial action and a sixth day of national strikes and protests against the bill on Tuesday.
"This reform must be done, and will be done," commented Labour Minister Eric Woerth, responsible for drawing up the bill, speaking at the weekend.
Meanwhile Prime Minister François Fillon dismissed calls by Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry for a suspension of the passage of the reform bill through the Senate beginning on Wednesday. He promised it will "be carried through to its end" and would be "voted upon" as planned when it is returned to parliament after approval at the upper house.
The union-led opposition to the reforms, which will raise the minimum retirement age to 62 and the age for qualifying for a full state pension from 65 to 67, has now been joined by strikes and blockages in the transport sector, fuel depots and national education institutions, including hundreds of schools where students have organised demonstrations, several marred by scenes of violence.
Some 2,500 of the 12,000 filling stations across the country declared they had run out of supplies on Monday following the week-long, widespread blockage of oil refineries. Truck drivers began joining the anti-reform protests by blocking motorways near Le Mans and Avignon on Monday.
While unions prepared for a show of force in the sixth day of national street demonstrations on Tuesday, when many public sector activities, notably transport services, will be affected by strike action, M. Fillon stood firm in his refusal to compromise over the reforms.
'There is widespread exasperation, very great anger'
"The right to strike is not the right to prevent access to a fuel depot, that is an illegal act," the prime minister told French television on Sunday. "I will not allow our country to be blockaded, I will not allow the French economy to be smothered by a blockade of fuel supplies," he said. "There will be no shortages because we will take the necessary decisions."
He warned the unions that "at a time when the economic renewal is showing itself, those who take these types of decisions should think twice because it's jobs that are going to be lost." M. Fillon dismissed as "a swindle" the proposition by opponents of the reform bill that major financial institutions and transactions could be taxed to help offset the pension payment deficit. "The taxation of capital has never allowed the possibility of finding sufficient funding for the masses involved by the pensions question."
"The stalemate is linked to the fact that the social partners [principally unions] have, since April, refused to discuss the transfer of the legal [retirement] age from 60 to 62," he said.
Bernadette Groison, general secretary of the FSU, the largest public sector union in France, told Mediapart that M. Fillon's comments were a sign the government was "panicking" after reaching a dead-end in the pension dispute. "It can no longer back up, because of the risk of giving the impression it had been wrong, so it's raising its voice," she said. "It is playing with provocation, at the beginning of a week that will be decisive."
She said the growing blockades of schools and other educational institutions "is the sign of a very widespread exasperation, of a great anger," and cautioned that "the worry over incidents running out of control exists."
The Senate vote on the bill, expected Wednesday or Thursday, would not announce an end to the protests, warned Mme.Groison. "Not everything will stop on October 20th, because the parliamentary process continues right up to [the bill's] definitive adoption, no doubt at the beginning of November. We'll be talking with personnel about how to continue with the movement."
This report was compiled with extracts of several articles from Mediapart's extensive coverage of the dispute.
English version: Graham Tearse