Protesters hit the streets across France on Tuesday in a show of force after the government of President Emmanuel Macron tried to end the longest transport strike in French history by taking some of the sting out of his pension overhaul. Tens of thousands of rail workers and teachers marched, trade unions said, despite the government’s call over the weekend to get back to the negotiating table. Many schools were closed in the French capital and beyond and train service was limited on the strike’s 41st day.
Unions are locked in a tug of war with Mr. Macron over his plans to adopt a new pension system that his government says is more transparent and less costly. Mr. Macron wants to consolidate France’s 42 pension plans into one universal system, eliminating so-called “special regimes” that allow some workers, including employees of the national rail company and the Paris subways, to retire before 62 years old, the legal age of retirement in France.
On Saturday, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe wrote a letter to trade unions offering to temporarily remove one of the overhaul’s most contentious provisions: the introduction of incentives and penalties to encourage workers to retire two years after the legal retirement age. The provision, the government says, was necessary to balance the pension system’s budget by 2027.Mr. Philippe said that if the government and unions weren’t able to agree on new cost-saving measures by April, the government would pass by decree the measures it deemed necessary.