Sharjah24 – Reuters: A second nationwide strike on Tuesday will disrupt French public transport amid protests across the country, in a backlash against the government's plans to make people work longer before retirement.
Unions want to keep the pressure on the government and hope to repeat the large turnout for the first national day of protest on Jan. 19.
That day, more than a million people marched in opposition to pushing the retirement age to 64 from 62 and accelerating a planned delay in the age eligible for a full pension.
"This reform is unfair and brutal," Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants' UNSA union told Reuters. "Moving (the pension age) to 64 is going backwards, socially."
Only about one in three high-speed TGV trains will run on Tuesday and even fewer local and regional trains, while the Paris metro will also be seriously disrupted.
Half of primary school teachers will walk off the job, their union said, while oil refinery staff and workers across all sectors were also set to go on strike.
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