So, this is what is going on in France...this is why I am not working AGAIN today!
PARIS — Scores of flights were canceled, drivers lined up for fuel and young people took to the streets of Paris on Tuesday protests over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s efforts to change France’s pension system mounted in advance of a final parliamentary vote on the measures this week.
Labor unions again called for widespread work stoppages and protest marches on Tuesday — the sixth day of national strikes or demonstrations since early September.
Young people threw up barricades of garbage bins to snarl traffic in the Place de la République in central Paris on Tuesday and scuffles between high school students and riot police were reported from there and from the suburb of Nanterre.
Garbage workers, teachers, armored truck drivers supplying automated teller machines and an array of others planned to join the stoppage Tuesday. Protest organizations said more than 260 demonstrations were planned during the day, ratcheting up the battle of nerves between the authorities and unions demanding that the government retreat from reforms as previous administrations did in 1995 and 2006.
The disruption that has been building since the first protest on Sept. 7, compounded by strikes at oil refineries now in their eighth day and blockades of fuel depots have left motorists scrambling to fill up their cars as hundreds of the country’s 12,000 service stations ran out of fuel.
But Mr. Sarkozy has shown no sign of abandoning his plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60.
“The reform is essential and France is committed to it and will go ahead with it just as our German partners did,” he told reporters late Monday in the Normandy resort of Deauville, Reuters reported.
He was speaking after talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which resolved in 2007 to raise its retirement age from 62 to 63 by 2029, in line with a broader European trend. Overall, the continent is aging and, as people live longer with smaller families, fewer young people are available to pay for the continent’s social safety nets.
News reports on Tuesday said a high school in Le Mans, southwest of Paris, was destroyed by arson in the early hours, but it was not clear if the blaze was linked to the protests. Transport authorities in Paris said commuter rail services would be cut by as much as a half. The national railroad authority also announced cancellations of around half its high-speed and normal services on Tuesday, but said the Eurostar Paris-London link would not be affected. The authority said support for the strike seemed to be running at around 30 per cent compared to 40 per cent for the previous stoppage one week ago.
At the Gare du Nord railroad station in Paris, travelers waited on benches then raced for trains running on a reduced schedule. “It’s absolutely absurd,” said Emmanuel de Boos, 56, an author from the western city of Nantes. “We absolutely need to reform the retirement system as it exists today.”
“I think these strikes are more about other things,” he said, likening them to a referendum on Mr. Sarkozy. “He has a lifestyle that doesn’t look like that of everyone. This is a reaction against the elite.”
Yannick Kalu, 25, a student from a northern suburb of Paris, called Mr. Sarkozy’s reforms a “bad idea. For those who began working early in life it’s going to be rough.” But he, too, said the strikes were about the broader issue of Mr. Sarkozy’s rule. “I really do hope it’s going to stop,” he said, but “we can’t hold it against people to worry about their retirements.”
In the central Chatelet neighborhood of Paris, Marie Rodriguez, 35, a middle school teacher of history and geography, said the breadth of the protests “ proves that not only one group is against the reform but that everybody is concerned. I support the strike.”
At Orly airport near Paris, where half of the scheduled flights were grounded, travelers peered at departure boards recording a slew of cancellations and delays.
Martin Raggio, 31, and Alejandro Molettieri, 29, who both work at a beer distillery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, had come to Orly after their train to Barcelona was canceled. “I guess we will wait here, we will sleep here in Orly maybe, until we can leave,” Mr. Roggio said glumly. "We knew about the strike but we were hoping we would be okay.”
At other French airports, around a third of flights were to be affected by the strikes as the test of wills between labor unions and the government intensified.
Presenting himself as a champion of necessary change, Mr. Sarkozy had proposed the retirement measures to help wrest France from the economic doldrums gripping many parts of Europe and to reverse years of declining fortunes before elections in 2012. With a final Senate vote on the measures expected this week and lower house approval already in hand, he believes he can bank on success.
Initially, the vote was set for Wednesday but French news reports said that it could now be held on Thursday or even as late as Sunday, extending the confrontation as the Senate plows its way through some 400 amendments introduced by the opposition. Those tactics will delay, but probably not alter, the outcome.
Mr. Sarkozy “has a clear majority in the two houses, so he has no difficulty in passing the reform,” said Pierre Haski, co-founder of the news Web site Rue89. “But that does not give him legitimacy with the public.”
At worst, Mr. Haski said in a telephone interview, the upshot could be that Mr. Sarkozy emerges from the crisis as a lame-duck president for the next two years. “It is a question of legality versus legitimacy,” he said.
Mr. Sarkozy, who was aiming to be able to present himself for the next two years as a courageous reformer in the national interest, may instead end up with the image of an elitist imposing unwanted reforms on the poor. A widely quoted survey in Le Parisien on Monday said 71 percent of respondents either supported or were sympathetic to the strikers. The telephone poll of 1,002 people was conducted Oct. 15 and 16.
“The government can win it despite threats of violence in the street, despite shortages, or simply by a vote of Parliament,” said Jérôme Sainte-Marie, who heads the polling institute C.S.A. “But these 71 percent translate into the cost of victory: It will be very high.”
He added, “We are looking at a direct confrontation between public opinion and the president of the republic.”
No comments:
Post a Comment