On Thursday (April 13), railway workers gathered outside Paris’s ‘Gare de Lyon’ train station, as France readied for another day of public protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to make people work longer for their pensions.
Hundreds of people then marched into the metro station’s passageway, yelling anti-pension reform chants.
Some trains will be canceled, and walkout actions by refinery workers, garbage collectors, and teachers are also likely, at a time when opinion surveys show that a large majority of voters still reject raising the retirement age by two years to 64.
A day before the Constitutional Council rules on the validity of the law that would raise the retirement age by two years to 64, trade unions advocated a show of force on the streets.
If the Council gives its permission, possibly with some qualifiers, the government will be able to promulgate the law, hoping that this will eventually put an end to the protests, which have at times become violent and galvanized mass opposition to Macron.
Demonstrators momentarily blocked an entrance road to the Council with rubbish bins on the 12th day of statewide protests since strikes began in mid-January, hanging a banner across the street saying “Constitutional Censorship.”
The strike has slowed, and protests have drawn smaller audiences in recent weeks, compared to the more than 1 million-strong throngs seen earlier in the movement.
