All the french unions organize this Tuesday the third day of strikes and demonstrationsafter the massive protests of January 19 and 31, against the reform of the pensions of the Government of the president, Emmanuel Macronwhich has just started the parliamentary debate in a bumpy way.
As in the two previous days, the strikes were felt this morning, especially in the public transport, in education or in energyfor example with the cancellation of the 20% of flights planned at the Parisian airport of Orly, the second in the country.
The National Railway Company (SNCF) had warned since Sunday that because of the workers who have gone on strike it has to delete between half and two thirds of high-speed trains (TGV).
On international lines, a quarter of the Eurostar who are going to London half of the Lyria who go to Switzerland, some of the Thalys who are going to Brussels and two-thirds of the other trains, among which are those of the Paris-Barcelona corridor.
The railway strike, which greatly affects the outskirts of Paris (between half and 80%according to the lines) and to the regional ones (a 70% cancelled, on average), will continue on Wednesday.
The situation of the metropolitan public transport of Paris is very complicated throughout the day, with only two of the 14 metro lines (the automatic ones) operating normally and the rest with between a third and a half of the usual trains in circulation.
In energy, strikers at state power company EDF have cut output by about 4,500 megawattsequivalent to the power of more than four nuclear reactors, but without causing cuts or blackouts.
Beyond the strikes, the main indicator of the success of this new protest will be the number of protesters. On January 31, the police counted 1,272 millionwhile the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) calculated that there were 2.8 million at about 250 gears all over the country.
Its general secretary, Philippe Martinezdenounced this Tuesday the lack of listening to Macron, who in his opinion has “an oversized ego” that “he wants to demonstrate that he is capable of carrying out a reform regardless of the position of public opinion.”
In an interview on the radio RTLMartínez warned that the president “play with fire”.
Opposite, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussoptin charge of defending the reform, insisted this Tuesday in another interview with the radio station RMC in what “it is necessary” if you want to preserve the pay-as-you-go regime, in which current workers pay the pensions of retirees.
Dussopt affirmed that without changes, the system will have a deficit of €1.8 billion (1.9 billion dollars) next year and 12,500 million annually (13.4 billion dollars) from 2027 and 25,000 million annually (26.7 billion dollars) in the horizon of 2040.
The main axis of the reform is the delay of the minimum retirement age of 62 years currently to 64and an acceleration of the increase in the contribution period necessary to have a full pension, which will go from 42 years now to 43 in 2027.
(With information from EFE)
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Source-www.infobae.com