Global General

Clashes, protests in French tensions over pensions

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-10-22 13:26

High school students shout slogans as they demonstrate in the streets of Marseille, Oct 21, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

PARIS - Police used tear gas and water cannon against rampaging youth in Lyon on Thursday while the French government showed its muscle in parliament, short-circuiting tense Senate debate on a bill raising the retirement age to 62.

Despite growing pressure, President Nicolas Sarkozy held firm on a measure he says is crucial to the future of France, heightening the standoff with labor unions that see retirement at 60 as a hard-earned right.

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Weeks of protests have left at least a quarter of the nation's gas stations on empty, blocked hundreds of ships at the Mediterranean port of Marseille and even forced Lady Gaga to cancel Paris concerts.

Violence on the margins of student protests have added a new dimension to the volatile mix.

A march in Paris by at least 4,000 students was peaceful, but new violence broke out in Lyon, where police used water cannon and tear gas to hold back rampaging youths hurling bottles and overturning at least one car.

"It is not troublemakers who will have the last word in a democracy," Sarkozy told local officials in central France, promising to find and punish rioters. He accused strikers of "taking the economy, businesses, daily life hostage."

The tough talk extended to parliament where the government short-circuiting a protracted debate on the retirement bill by ordering Senators to vote on a package of its own design.

Labor Minister Eric Woerth, announcing the decision to call upon Article 44-3 of the Constitution, explained there would be a single vote this week on a package - and no voting on the remaining 250 of some 1,000 amendments.

The final text was expected to be adopted next week by both houses. However, unions remained defiant, programming two more strike and mobilization days for Oct 28 and Nov 6.

The French government - like many heavily indebted governments around Europe - says raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and overhauling the money-losing pension system are vital to ensuring that future generations receive any pensions at all.

French unions say the working class is unfairly punished by the pension reform and the government should find money for the pension system elsewhere. They fear this reform will herald the end of an entire network of welfare benefits that makes France an enviable place to work and live.

"We cannot stop now," Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the Workers' Force union, said Thursday of the protest movement.

Unions have held several rounds of one-day strikes in recent months, but scattered actions have turned increasingly radical as the bill has made its way through parliament.

"I don't want to die at work," said one Bordeaux student from the Bel Orme High School, among some 3,000 who protested in the southwest city. She identified herself only as 16-year-old Cassandra.

Students barricaded high schools and took to the streets nationwide Thursday afternoon. Hundreds filled the port of Marseille - where dozens of ships waited in the Mediterranean after days of strikes have blocked access to a key oil terminal.

Student protests have forced the government to its knees in the past, and in recent days some have degenerated into violence.

French striking railway workers demonstrate over pension reform in Paris, Oct 21, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]