French President Emmanuel Macron is facing his first nationwide strike after re-election as unions oppose a planned pension reform.
The strike on Thursday disrupted the country's energy sector and took a large portion of the nuclear production offline. Workers pushed for a pay increase amid rising tensions between unions and the government over the reform.
Nationwide Strike
The chief of the hard-left CGT union, Philippe Martinez, said that thousands of workers were on strike on Thursday. He made the remarks as he attended a protest march in Paris along with several thousand others, many of whom were waving red labor union flags.
Martinez added that the strike was a message to the French government but also to France's main employer association, Medef. The walkouts came amid a concerted call by some unions for company leaders to increase wages due to the high inflation.
The nationwide strike followed months of individual actions across business sectors including transportation, retail, and education. The strikes, along with unfulfilled maintenance plans resulted in more than 60% of France's refining capacity becoming offline, as per Reuters.
The strike, which was prioritized by roughly a fifth of the country's workforce, reduced nuclear power generation by 3.5 gigawatts (GW) by 12:45 GMT and by 470 megawatts (MW) hydropower stations., which is an overall reduction of 9% in production capacity.
The nationwide strike had been in the works for a long time in an attempt to boost the labor movement as public life started to pick up once again after the summer break. However, coming amid a cost of living crisis and at a time when Macron's government is finalizing plans to push through an increase in the legal retirement age, the protests also became a measure of potential social unrest.
According to France24, leading left-wing MP Alexir Corbiere said that the nationwide protest is the start of a social battle. The lawmaker said that he had hoped that the demonstrations, in which he took part, would be the starting point.
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Pension Reform
The pension reform's increase of the current retirement age of 62 years is one of the key planks of Macron's re-election campaign. He argued that the current system was unsustainable and too expensive for the country to afford.
Martinez argued that all of the unions in the country are opposed to working up until they are 64 to 65 years of age. Various left-wing political parties have already called on their own separate allies on Oct. 16, demanding pay increases and an end to the planned pension reform.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that the French government would spend another few months in consultations with unions and other political parties, despite Macron being in a hurry to push the legislation through.
The strike comes after Airlines previously went on a one-day strike on Sept. 16 due to air traffic controllers demanding higher wages. In a statement, the air traffic control union, SNCTA, said that the lack of wage increase for workers was "unjustifiable," the New York Times reported.
