The standoff between the French government and trades unions over pension reforms reaches a critical point this week with talks due to resume amid calls for further walkouts and mass protests, reports The Guardian.
As the country returns to work on Monday after a two-week holiday, union leaders have called for a show of strength from workers in the public and private sectors and a blockade of refineries, threatening fuel shortages.
Talks between the two sides are due to restart on Tuesday after a month of industrial action that has brought transport chaos to Paris and elsewhere in the country. Unions have called for nationwide protests on Thursday and Saturday.
Yesterday police fired teargas at demonstrators in Paris’s busy Gare du Nord station, used by tourists taking the Eurostar service, at the Gare de l’Est and in the Bastille area during demonstrations in which several bins were set alight.
In his new year address, President Emmanuel Macron said he would not back down on pension reform but urged his government to find a “rapid compromise” to the crisis. Union leaders, however, have accused the government, led by Édouard Philippe, the prime minister, of deliberately dragging its heels.
“There’s no reason to stop the mobilisation,” Yves Veyrier, the general secretary of the Force Ouvrière Union, told the AFP news agency. “The priority is widening it as much as possible on Monday.”