Strikes in France are on great rise Affecting Schools and Transportations

Strikes are unfolding all over France in response to the second wave of protests against the retirement age being increased from 62 years to 64 years. The first wave of protest was held on 19 January 2023. President Emmanuel Macron has planned to adopt this scheme.

Eight big unions are formed who are participating in the strikes. This is the main reason which is obstructing schools, oil refineries, and especially public transportation. 

Earlier this month, more than a million people took part in the first day of the strikes, and soon it is expected to spread across France.

The French government led by President Macron is making headway with its retirement age reforms without being affected by the opinion polls that revealed that two-thirds of voters are against these changes. The reforms are, hence, beginning the passage through the National Assembly next week. This is the main reason for the wide rage of strikes taking place in the nation.

Without a superiority of votes in parliament, the Macron government will have to depend on the ruling parties’ MPs along with the right-wing Republicans for backing.

According to the far-leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France was at a critical point, and he also anticipated that the number of protesters will become more than on the first day of action on 19 January. 

Street strikes are also foreseeable in all the major cities and smaller towns. Around 11,000 police officials have been deployed to look over the spectacles.

There were serious interruptions to the transportation system in the Paris area due to the strikes, where only one in three high-speed trains was operating and only two driverless metro lines were working as normal. Large groups of people were evident on one of the main overground metro lines in the capital city.

According to the CGT ( General Confederation of Labour ) union, no less than three-quarters of employees had stopped working at the TotalEnergies oil refineries and fuel depots.

About half of all nursery and primary school teachers would participate in the strikes. However, high school teachers will hold a strike in front of some schools, and the students will also support their teachers by occupying Sciences Po university in Paris.

In an interview with the BBC, Sciences Po Political Scientist Bruno Palier said, a lot of French people think that working is becoming more and more painful. It’s not that they don’t want employment and want to work, they just don’t want to work in these environments. 

An MP in President Macrons’s Renaissance party, Christopher Weissberg said that any kind of reform that will ask people to work longer hours will not be very popular amongst the public, but the government has been determined on this reform.

Weissberg further added that France has a universal system, and the system has to pay for itself. If that’s not the case, the country will start weakening, and if it weakens, at some point shortly, people will lose their pensions. 

The Macron government has signaled that it may think through the details of the reform, but the retirement age will rise by two years to 64 with no revision.

As per an Economics expert, Philippe Aghion, the retirement reforms were very important for the country because France has a structural deficit of around €13 bn ($14bn; £11bn). Also raising the retirement age will help increase employment opportunities in France.

Aghion added that these reforms will help the government and give it credibility to make some investments that it needs to make in the hospital system that it needs to improve, in schooling, and more investment in innovation and green industrialization. 

France’s retirement age is relatively lower than most other countries in Western Europe. Neighboring countries like Germany and Italy have raised the official retirement age to 67 years, in the United Kingdom it is 66 years, while Spain’s retirement age is 65 years.