French Strikes Public Transportation Strike Continue (Video)

French public transportation worker unions urge workers to strike in an effort to pressure government to drop plans to increase retirement age.
French Strikes Public Transportation Strike Continue  (Video)
10/13/2010
Updated:
10/14/2010

[ Protesters Block Fuel Supplies in France - NTDTV ]

French public transportation worker unions have urged workers to strike for a three days in an effort to pressure the government to drop plans to increase the retirement age. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is refusing to back down at all on the issue of raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62.

The government says the changes are needed to help France cope with an aging population and help balance the pension system’s budget by 2018. “However difficult it may be to implement this reform, the government and Parliament will press ahead with it in the general interest, calmly and determinedly,” Sarkozy told ministers at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Paris yesterday, according to government spokesman Luc Chatel, as reported by Businessweek.

The reform bill will raise the minimum age for a drawing a pension to 62 and the age for a full pension from 65 to 67, giving it similar age criteria as Social Security retirement benefits in the United States.

Demonstrations are planned across France; 1.23 million people already marched in protests on Oct. 12, police said. The protest was the fourth against the proposed pension changes in five weeks. Unions plan more demonstrations on Oct. 16, Businessweek reported.

Union leaders have opposed calling for a general strike. Instead, the top leaders will allow workers to decide whether or not to continue striking through votes at their union locals. The government says it will allow people in hardship jobs who started working as teenagers, as well as women who had three or more children, to continue retiring early.