The French country celebrates the third day of strikes and demonstrations against the project that aims to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years
The pulse between the unions and the Government continues in the streets of France. Some 750,000 citizens demonstrated this Tuesday on the third day of protests against the pension reform pursued by the president, Emmanuel Macron, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The General Confederation of Labor (CGT), one of the main unions in the country, raised the figure to two million. There was also a dance of numbers in Paris. The CGT counted 400,000 participants, while the Police reduced them to 57,000 attendees.
«There is no truce. The fight will continue until victory,” the CGT promised in a statement, which described the third day of mobilizations as a “success” despite the fact that there was a decrease in protesters compared to the previous protest. On January 31, between 1.2 million people gathered, according to the security forces, and 2.8, according to the power stations. On the 19th of the same month, between 1.1 million protested, according to official figures, and 2 million, in the opinion of the unions.
“If the government continues to get stubborn despite the mobilizations, it will have to go up to speed with more forceful, longer actions and tougher, more numerous, more massive and indefinite strikes,” warned Philippe Martinez, general secretary of the CGT in the demonstration in Paris.
The decrease in the number of protesters on Tuesday could have contributed to the fact that there are school holidays in a third of the country since the unions have called two protests this week. On Saturday there is a new demonstration.
Macron wants to gradually raise the minimum retirement age from the current 62 to 64 by 2030. He also wants to speed up a measure that will require French people to be 43 years old in order to be entitled to a full pension.
The debate in the National Assembly began on Monday. The Government, which does not have an absolute majority in the lower house, hopes to achieve the support of Los Republicanos (moderate right) to carry out the pension reform promised in the electoral campaign. The left and the extreme right are against it.
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