France lives the third day of consecutive strikes against the pension reform of the president, Emmanuel Macron, who intends to delay the retirement age from 62 to 64. Since Tuesday, the day the strike began, there have been strikes at the refineries , problems to supply fuel and, in addition, a group of carriers has blocked the tollbooth of Le Perthus, next to the Spanish border.
A hundred people with French union badges have blocked the Le Perthus tollbooth in both directions since early morning, which has generated queues of cars. The gendarmes intervened in concert with the unions and without any incidents and the highway collapsed around 10:30 a.m., a spokeswoman for the Prefecture (government delegation) of the Pyrenees-Orientales department told the EFE news agency.
Today they continue the strikes that began on Tuesday, when the sixth day of mobilization was held throughout the country against this controversial project. The unions wanted to paralyze the country that day, something that was not achieved, although the strike continues in some strategic sectors: public transport and energy.
Since the beginning of the week, strikers have prevented fuel from leaving refineries and on Wednesday 7% of the country’s gas stations had a shortage of some type of fuel.
There are also problems in transport: no train has been running in the Barcelona-Paris corridor since Tuesday, flights continue to be canceled at the main airports and also two thirds of high-speed trains (TGV), 60% of regional and commuter ones.
Despite the pressure from the street, the reform is going through stages. On Wednesday night the Senate approved the most controversial article of the reform: article 7, which delays the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
On Saturday there is a new day of demonstrations called throughout the country. The Government hopes to be able to approve the entire text between now and Sunday. Afterwards, the reform will go to a mixed commission and should be definitively approved before the end of the month. The unions have asked to meet with Macron.
The Government, which does not give its arm to twist and is advancing with the law despite the opposition in the street, has practically no parliamentary support, except that of Los Republicanos. Without these votes you will not be able to carry out the text. For this reason, he wants to speed up its approval as soon as possible, to avoid having to resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution that allows the adoption of a text without a vote, something that would be perceived by the French as an imposition by Macron.
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