1.12 million march against French pension draft law

Some 1.12 million strikers turned out to march in rallies across France yesterday to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to increase the retirement age to 62, the Interior Ministry estimated.

The unions organising the protests put the turnout at between 2.5 and three million, but whatever the true total both rival estimates were higher than they had been after a similar protest on June 24.

Then, police had estimated 800,000 took part and the unions two million. Labour leaders had set themselves a target of beating June’s figure in order to demonstrate against mounting dissatisfaction with Mr Sarkozy’s reform programme.