French Senate approves raising retirement age

THE French Senate yesterday approved a hotly contested Bill raising the retirement age to 62, hours after riot police forced the reopening of a strategic refinery to help halt growing fuel shortages amid nationwide strikes and protests.

In tense balloting after 140 hours of debate, the Senate voted 177-153 for the pension reform. The measure is expected to win final formal approval by both houses of parliament next week.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative government, keen to get the measure passed and quell increasingly radicalised protests, cut short the debate and voting process using a special procedure. Critics on the left called the use of Article 44-3 of the constitution a denial of democracy.

The tough stance by the government extended to strikes as French riot police forced a strategic refinery to reopen, aiming to halt growing fuel shortages that have emptied petrol pumps around the country and risked hurting industry.

Despite efforts to conquer union resistance, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said it would take several more days to end fuel shortages that are taking a toll on France’s economy.

Unions oppose a pillar of the reform – raising the retirement age from 60 to 62 – and have staged months of strikes and protests that have boiled over into radical action and scattered clashes.

Sarkozy had ordered regional authorities to intervene and force open depots, accusing the strikers of holding ordinary people and the French economy “hostage”.

The Interior Ministry said the operation at the Grandpuits fuel refinery succeeded “without incident”, but the CGT union claimed three workers were injured.

Workers have been camped in front of the site for 10 days, blocking access and contributing to widespread fuel shortages. About 20% of France’s service stations were still empty yesterday, down from 40% a few days ago.

Sarkozy says overhauling the money-losing pension system is vital to ensuring that future generations receive any pensions at all. It is a choice many European governments are facing as populations live longer and government debts soar.

But French unions say retirement at 60 is a hard-earned right, and claim the working class will be unfairly punished by the pension reform. They also fear this is just the first step in dismantling an entire network of benefits that make France an enviable place to work and live.

Picture: French high school students shout slogans during a demonstration in Bordeaux earlier this week.