French protesters have launched a new push to pressure President Emmanuel Macron into dropping a pension reform plan, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets and strikes disrupting transport and schools.
\nAccording to international media reports, from tiny islands to major cities, demonstrators poured by the thousands into France’s streets on Tuesday.
\nLabour unions aimed to mobilise more than 1 million protesters in what veteran left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon described as a \u201ccitizens’ insurrection.”
\nLabour unions and left-wing legislators fighting in parliament against Macron’s plans were counting on protesters to turn out massively to strengthen their efforts to kill the bill that would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
\nMeanwhile, the government says it is determined to push through Macron’s election pledge to reform France’s pension system.
\nThe first marches kicked off in the morning across the country, with several prominent opposition politicians taking part.
\nAs large crowds marched in cities and towns, Melenchon celebrated \u201ca historic day” of protests and predicted defeat for Macron. In Paris, flag-waving, horn-blowing demonstrators gathered in large numbers for an afternoon march through the capital.
\n\u201cIt’s not often that we see such a mass mobilisation,\u201d Melenchon said, speaking in the southern city of Marseille.
\nMillions had to find alternative means of transport Tuesday, work from home or take time off to look after their school-age children, with workers in transport and education sectors among those staging walkouts.
\nRail operator SNCF reported major disruptions, with strikes knocking out most trains in the Paris region, in all other regions and on France\u2019s flagship high-speed network linking cities and major towns.
\nThe Paris Metro was also hit hard by station closures and cancellations.
\nStrikes also hit schools, with the Education Ministry reporting that around one-quarter of teachers stayed off the job \u2014 fewer than in the January 19 first round of protests.
\nFrench media also reported walkouts in oil refineries. The French government mobilised 11,000 officers to police the protests.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
French protesters have launched a new push to pressure President Emmanuel Macron into dropping a pension reform plan, with hundreds of thousands taking to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4574,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}