French unions up the ante with latest pension protest

French unions sought yesterday to bring millions onto the streets, shunning strikes for mass protests in their latest salvo against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age.

Rallies were held in cities including Saint-Etienne, Clermont-Ferrand, Calais and Aix-en-Provence ahead of the main demonstration in Paris in the afternoon.

The interior ministry said around 380,000 people were demonstrating around midday, fewer than the 410,000 people the ministry counted at the same moment on the last day of protest, September 23.

“The aim is to get the same level (as previous protests)... The government will have to pay close attention,” said François Chereque of the biggest CFDT union.

Chereque said he expected between two and three million people to take part in the nationwide protests, the first to be held at the weekend after two days of weekday strike action in September that failed to bow the government.

“Those who cannot demonstrate during the week because they’re working in small businesses and can’t afford to stop will be on the street,” Chereque said.

The last day of action ended in an argument over how many people took part: police said numbers were down from the previous September 7 protest at around one million; unions said they were up at three million.

Public support for the protests is growing, according to an opinion poll published in L’Humanité daily yesterday, which said 71 per cent of the French supported or sympathised with the action, while 12 per cent were opposed.

After the last protests, Prime Minister François Fillon insisted his government would push on with the controversial plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.