Strikes crippled French transport and public services yesterday as around two million people took to the streets
By John Lichfield in Paris
Strikes crippled French transport and public services yesterday as around two million people took to the streets in the second mass protest this month against pension reform.
Despite the threat of more strikes next month, President Nicolas Sarkozy is convinced that mainstream French unions do not have the stomach for the kind of rolling protests that forced previous governments to scrap social reforms in 1995 and 2006.
Although the figures for yesterday's strikes and marches were disputed (as ever), the tide of protest against the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 62 appeared to recede marginally rather than rise. With his poll ratings in the trough and his reputation, at home and abroad, in tatters, the President has staked his chances of re-election in 2012 on a pensions "victory" and the popularity among right-wing voters of his campaign against Roma gypsy migrants from eastern Europe.
Yesterday's protests were, therefore, anxiously scrutinised, by both government and opposition. Were the strikes and marches bigger, or smaller, than those on 7 September? Were left-leaning students and schoolchildren taking to the streets to rebel, not so much against pension reform as against President Sarkozy and all his works? (This is said to be the President's principal nightmare.)
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-trains-grind-...
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