French unions make ultimate push to derail pension reform
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets across France on Tuesday for what will be the fourteenth day of demonstrations since January to oppose French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform.
Authorities expect up to 600,000 people at the demonstrations nationwide, less than half the peak on 7 March, when 1.28 million were counted by police.
In contrast to the earlier phase of the movement, only limited disruption is expected on public transport though some flight cancellations are awaited, in particular at the Paris Orly airport.
Around 11,000 police, including 4,000 in Paris, will be deployed, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who said the extra policing would "ensure the security of the demonstrations and guarantee the right to demonstrate".
President Macron signed in April the bill to raise the pension age to 64 from 62 after the government used a controversial but legal mechanism to avoid a vote in parliament that it risked losing.
The reform has sparked weeks of often violent protests and strikes.
Parts of the overhaul, including the key increase in the pension age, were printed Sunday in France's official journal, meaning they are now law.
Opponents are pinning their hopes on a motion put forward by the small Liot faction in parliament – broadly backed by the left – to repeal the law and the increased retirement age.
Parliament speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron's party but officially neutral, was to rule on Thursday whether parliament could vote on returning the retirement age to 62.
This was removed from the Liot motion at commission level, but left-wing parties have sought to put it back on the agenda via an amendment.
"The defeat has not been enacted," Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau told Radio J, warning that "we will raise our voices" if the parliament vote is not allowed.
The months-long battle against Macron's push to raise the retirement age has raised the profile and membership of France's unions, which have drawn interest from younger and private sector workers.
"We are not asking to bring down the government, but to bring down the retirement reform," said Sophie Binet, leader of France's hard-left CGT union, on BFM TV on Sunday.
"It's scandalous to want to apply this reform at breakneck speed," Binet said, calling the timing of the reform, which is set to take effect from September, "totally irresponsible."
The battle against the pensions reform "will never finish", hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon told the 20 Minutes daily.
But Macron's allies say it has long been game over for opponents of the reform, even if it remains widely unpopular with the public.
The opposition "knows very well that this motion has no future," Prisca Thevenot, an MP for Macron's Renaissance party, told LCI television on Sunday.
The government says the changes are essential for France's financial health.
(With agencies)