French union calls for ‘massive’ strike action

ONE of France’s biggest unions called yesterday for further “massive” strike action next week against a planned pension reform that has triggered the biggest and most sustained anti-austerity protests in Europe.

A final Senate vote on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopular bill is set to be speeded up to make sure it happens today, a parliamentary source said, following pressure from the government as protests and fuel blockades drag on.

Sarkozy, a conservative who is determined to face down unions and force through an increase in the retirement age, is battling 10-day-old refinery strikes and fuel depot blockades that have dried up a quarter of the nation’s petrol pumps.

His popularity at an all-time low 18 months before a presidential election, Sarkozy is fighting deep public opposition to a reform he says is the only way to stem a ballooning pension shortfall as the population ages.

“The government remains intransigent. We need to continue with massive action as early as next week,” Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union, told RMC radio. Union leaders were meeting last night to agree fresh action.

“We will ask the unions for strong action that will allow people to stop work and go on to the streets,” Thibault said.

Sarkozy’s handling of the protests is being closely watched by other European governments implementing austerity measures, as well as by markets who see it as a test of whether France can enact other measures to safeguard its coveted AAA credit rating.

The president wants the bill to raise the minimum retirement age by two years to 62 and the maximum age for a full pension to 67 from 65, passed by the end of the month.

He ordered police this week to break blockades at fuel depots. Yesterday, they removed a roadblock to Marseille airport, erected by hundreds of striking refinery workers.

“We cannot be the only country in the world where, when there is a reform, a minority wants to block everyone else,” Sarkozy said.

“By taking hostage of the economy, companies and the daily lives of French people, we are going to destroy jobs.”

French media commentators seized on the contrast with Britain, which has seen no comparable mass protests despite unveiling far harsher austerity measures on Wednesday, with half a million public sector job cuts and a rise in the retirement age to 66. But French unions are sticking to their guns.

“The French government is following the Anglo-Saxon economic model,” said Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the radical Force Ouvriere union. “It has to be wary of leading us into a wall.”

Students, who fear the pension reform will worsen youth unemployment by keeping older workers in jobs longer, hit the streets by the thousand in central Paris in their first major autumn protests. Several hundred secondary schools and three dozen universities were hit by strikes.

In the wealthy city of Lyon, clashes between youths and riot police, which began last week on the fringes of anti-pension protests, continued yesterday. Sarkozy called the clashes “scandalous” and said rioters would be punished.