France hit by new strikes over retirement age

[September 23, 2010]  PARIS (AP) -- French commuters squeezed onto limited trains or fought for rare parking spots Thursday as a second round of strikes against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62 hobbled trains, planes and schools across the country.

Fewer than half of the Paris Metro's lines were working normally, according to the RATP public transit network, and about half of France's long-distance trains were expected to be canceled, according to the SNCF state-run rail system.

Major cancellations were expected at Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports, the Paris airport authority said.

Security was higher than usual at some Metro stations, where soldiers armed with machine guns were on patrol. In recent days, top officials have warned that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil was at a record high.

Union leaders are seeking a massive show of popular discontent at 232 demonstrations throughout the country Thursday, hoping to beat the Sept. 7 protests when at least 1.1 million people took to the streets over reforms to the deficit-burdened pension system.

The strikes are seen as a test for the conservative Sarkozy and are being watched elsewhere in Europe, as governments struggle to rein in costs with unpopular austerity measures after a debt crisis in Greece scared markets and sapped confidence in the entire euro currency.

Sarkozy has indicated he is willing to make marginal concessions but remains firm on the central pillar: increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62 and pushing back the age from 65 to 67 for those who want full retirement benefits.

As baby boomers reach retirement age and life expectancy increases in France, the conservative government insists it must raise the retirement age so the pension system can break even by 2018. The leftist opposition sees retirement at 60 as a sacred symbol of France's social welfare system, and says the reform should make more exceptions for certain categories of workers.

"We must use all the means, all the means at our disposal to put pressure on the government," said Martine Aubry, head of the opposition Socialist party. "We say (the pension reform) is unfair."

She admitted that France had to take into consideration the increase in life expectancy, so some French must work longer.

"But we also think that those who started working very young, or those who had a hard job must still be able to retire at 60," Aubry said on RTL radio.

A poll in the left-leaning Liberation daily suggested that 63 percent of respondents supported the strikers, while just 29 percent of those polled supported the government. Almost 60 percent opposed the plan to raise retirement age, with 37 percent in favor, according to the poll, conducted by the Viavoice agency on Sept. 16 and 17 with 1,002 respondents.

Paris commuter Jeanne Charieres said it was "absolutely normal that people should react" to the pension reform plans.

"Many things could happen, people are really fed up," said Charieres as she attempted to board a Metro at Paris' busy Gare du Nord station.

"If the government remains deaf, we won't stop at this," said the head of the moderate CFDT union, Francois Chereque, told the Le Parisien daily.

The Eurostar undersea train service to London was not expected to be affected and the Thalys train from Belgium was only slightly disrupted, with nine in 10 trains running.

While the French capital's bus lines were running almost normally, commuters on some of the city's Metro lines had to queue up even to get on platforms.

Francoise Frugier emerged from Paris' Saint Lazare station on her way to work Thursday with one thought in mind: How will she get home? She grumbled as she jostled to grab a list of altered train schedules.

"It's a pain every time. I would of course prefer that they didn't strike," said Frugier, 42, a real estate worker. Her husband took a day off to stay with their two children, because it was unclear whether there would be enough teachers for their school to open.

"We can't continue" retiring at 60, she said. "I expect I will have to work much longer."

Some opted out of public transit, taking their cars or using Velib, Paris' rent-a-bike network, including Paris commuter Xavier Roth.

"Even the scooters struggle to ride between cars, and walking takes a long time, so for me a bicycle is the ideal compromise," he said.

The main teachers' union said over 50 percent of teachers were expected to strike, though the Education Ministry put the figure at just over 25 percent.

Some unions at the SNCF railway have already called for new strikes beyond Thursday.

France's lower house of parliament has approved the pension reform, which goes soon to debate in the Senate.

Even at 62, France would have one of the lowest retirement ages in Europe. Neighboring Germany has decided to bump the retirement age from 65 to 67.

The U.S. Social Security system is also gradually raising its retirement age to 67.

[Associated Press; By JENNY BARCHFIELD]

Associated Press writer Angela Charlton and AP Television News reporter Oleg Cetinic contributed to this report.

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