President Macron faces the first national strikes this week since his re-election, when a union-led day of protest begins an expected revolt over his plans to raise the retirement age, reports The Times.
With the backing of left-wing opposition parties, the CGT union has called on industrial and public sector workers to stop work and join marches on Thursday. Initially planned as action against low wages, the day has turned into a show of force against Macron’s rush to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65, starting next summer.
After weeks of drift following his centrist party’s loss of its absolute majority in parliamentary elections, the president, 44, has staked his reputation on achieving a retirement reform that sparked fierce protests before he shelved it with the onset of the pandemic in early 2020.
“Like the majority of the French, we are against the rise in the retirement age,” Philippe Martinez, the CGT leader, said. “The government wants to do it. It has to explain why because its arguments are not valid.”
All unions are opposed, including the biggest, the moderate CFDT. Its leader, Laurent Berger, said France was too stressed by other crises to accept a rapid rise in the pension age. “To start pushing back the legal retirement age in a top-down and brutal way is to set the country on fire,” he said.