French unions staged protests with thousands of participants this Thursday (16) to pressure the Government of France to withdraw the Pension Reform project in Parliament.
This was the fifth day of protests in less than a month in France, with unions threatening to paralyze the country if the reform proposal continues to advance in parliament.
“The discontent, combativeness and determination are intact,” said the leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger.
Protests were recorded in several cities in France such as Albi, Rennes, Marseille, Montpellier and Paris. In the French capital, unions estimate that 300,000 people took part in the demonstrations, although security forces said that 37,000 demonstrators were on the streets.
There was also a discrepancy in the data from the other protests in France. While the Interior Ministry estimated 440,000 demonstrators, unions totaled 1.3 million.
Regardless of the numbers, there was a significant drop in protests compared to last Saturday’s demonstrations (11), when according to the police, there were 963,000 people and 2.5 million for unions.
The unions reject two points of the Social Security Reform: the increase in the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years and that the increase in the contribution period from 42 to 43 years to have a full retirement be brought forward to 2027 (it is expected that between effective in 2035).
The French Government’s justification for the Pension Reform is the economic viability of the system, with an annual deficit estimated at 12.5 billion euros in 2030 without the proposed changes.
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