Tag: strikes

‘Mafia’ strikes bring Finland to a standstill

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Unions have called the industrial action to protest government proposals on labour law reforms which they say would adversely impact low-wage earners

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Hundreds of thousands of workers in Finland have joined widespread strikes which began Wednesday and will escalate through Thursday and Friday – with more strikes planned next week too. 

Unions called for industrial action to protest government proposals on labour law reforms which they say would adversely impact low-wage earners and shift a balance of power towards employers when it comes to setting salaries. 

A rally in the capital Helsinki attracted 10,000 workers, police said. A member of parliament from the ruling National Coalition Party wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that protesters had been paid “bribes” to attend. He offered no evidence to substantiate his claim. 

The strike comes right in the middle of campaigning in the second round of Finland’s presidential election, with politicians from the left and right canvassing hard for votes ahead of the ballot on Sunday 11 February.

The government maintains that their sweeping reforms are needed to make the Finnish economy more competitive, and as an indicator of how important the new proposals are to each side, the rhetoric has become more heated and divisive in recent weeks. 

“The need to reform our social security system and increase employment is urgent because of our public debt level. We need to get more people to work, decrease public spending and improve the operating environment to attract investments,” says Arto Satonen, Finland’s Minister for Employment. 

“The EU has pointed a finger at our debt-based public spending outlook and also the IMF has strongly supported the current Finnish government’s policies. For the sake of our future well-being, we should not and cannot leave the reforms undone,” he tells Euronews. 

Which sectors are hit by the strike action?

Unions estimate up to 300,000 workers could participate in the strikes, with Thursday’s rally in Helsinki bringing politicians from each side to the stage to address the crowd, many of whom held colourful balloons and placards. 

A strike by daycare staff in the capital city region started Wednesday, and they were joined by workers from across the spectrum of Finnish working life, impacting trains, trams and buses; airports, airlines and cabin crew; shipping, ferries and port operations; energy production companies; department stores and supermarket chains, hotels and restaurants; cleaning companies; tourism and leisure businesses; Finland’s biggest paper mills, mines and refineries; construction companies; and postal services. 

Maria Löfgren, the President of Akava which represents professional and managerial staff, tells Euronews that her union has “sought to resolve the escalated situation by proposing balancing solutions to the Prime Minister.” 

“So far, the government has not committed to taking them into account […] we want our solution to be genuinely considered,” she says.  

Minister Satonen, from the ruling National Coalition Party, says the government has been working together with unions when preparing its reforms, but they are “absolutely necessary” and that unions cannot have a “right of veto” on the plans. 

What exactly does the Finnish government want to change?

At the heart of the dispute are two main changes the government says it needs to make the Finnish economy more competitive. 

First, there would be swingeing cuts to social welfare provisions, with some of those cuts already implemented. Unions say it would mean hundreds of euros lost each month for people already on low incomes – a serious issue in sectors like retail where wages are already low – and it would adversely impact women who are more likely to be employed in some of those low-wage occupations. 

Secondly, the government wants to rewrite the rules on collective bargaining. 

Finland had traditionally used a tripartite model for labour negotiations: involving the government, representatives from trade unions, and representatives from employers too. That system has largely collapsed in recent years for various reasons, but the government’s latest raft of changes to negotiations, unions claim, would mean the bargaining power of workers is further weakened. 

Unions are concerned that more changes to this decades-old system would be detrimental as it fragments wage negotiations and puts more power in the hands of industries or individual companies to set maximum wage increase levels, potentially leading to income disparity even among people with similar jobs.

“In the long run, this kind of change would almost surely mean lower wages and less beneficial conditions for workers,” says Pekka Ristelä, Head of International Affairs at SAK, the Confederation of Finnish Trade Unions.

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The government has also proposed a system in which pay across the economy is tied to the export sector. It would bar the national labour mediator, which is frequently involved in setting pay, from proposing wage hikes in any labour dispute that are higher than those agreed with the export sector.

Reform plans, and strike action, fire up war of words

The government’s plans, and the unions’ calls for strike action, have again pitted Finland’s ruling right against the left. 

Government ministers have called the unions “mafia”, while right-wing politicians have claimed union leaders will “punish” workers who opt not to strike, and offered free legal advice to anyone in this situation. Another MP from a government party described the right to industrial action as a “pointless inconvenience.” 

Finland’s coalition government, which includes a far-right party as the second biggest partner, has repeatedly tried to paint the strikes as dangerously political, saying they have already secured a mandate from the voters to carry out their reforms – and that unions shouldn’t try to outflank them. 

A citizens’ initiative petition to ban so-called political strikes is supported by several politicians from the prime minister’s party.  

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“It is dangerous if we start seeing internationally recognised, established social players as ‘mafia’ and using those kind of labels. I would say that can be the start of a very harmful societal development,” says SAK’s Pekka Ristelä. 

“International treaties, in particular the ILO, has specific rules on what kind of political strikes must be allowed, and political strikes are directed against government policies that have an effect on workers,” he adds, describing a worrying “Trump effect” where legitimate actions are called into question.

“On the whole, we have wide support in the population.”



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Finland faces autumn of discontent with strikes and protests

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Trade union leaders say the right-wing government is a ‘reverse Robin Hood’ administration: cutting benefits to the poor, but rewarding the rich with tax breaks.

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Finland’s right-wing government is facing an autumn of discontent as trade unions and students put pressure on it over cuts to social welfare, the erosion of employment rights and job security, and new restrictions on international students who want to stay in the Nordic nation.

Trade union leaders have branded Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s government a ‘reverse Robin Hood administration’ slashing benefits for the poor while rewarding the rich with tax cuts.

The most visible recent protests began with students occupying Helsinki University, a movement now entering its third week for which a thousand university staff members have signed a letter of support. Organisers say the movement has “spread like wildfire” to every other major university in the country.

“We support the students’ views, and the University leadership understands the occupiers’ concerns about the livelihood of students,” says Vice-Rector Kai Nordlund in a statement.

Students say they’ve endured enough cuts, and a line must be drawn. 

“During the last decade the welfare support that Finnish students receive has been constantly cut, and this government is continuing that, worsening the situation for students and forcing us to take on more debt in order to study which means when we graduate we have a huge amount of debt to pay off,” says Havu Laakso, one of the  students occupying Helsinki University.

Laakso and their compatriots start the week with a boost to morale after a standoff with authorities, which ordered them out before Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö was due to speak at a recent event in the building. At the eleventh hour the university capitulated and the students, whose ranks had swelled with the prospect of forced eviction, managed to make plenty of noise during Niinistö’s speech.

“This current government also wants to increase tuition fees and tighten immigration policy making it so that international students only have three months to find a job once they graduate, or they get kicked out,” Laakso tells Euronews.

Experts have been baffled as to why the current government would cut housing allowances, while at the same time needs to attract thousands of foreign workers to fill traditionally low-paid jobs like nursing and elderly care – workers who rely on exactly these sorts of benefits to make ends meet; and also why there would be such a tight timeline imposed on international graduates whose skills are needed if Finland wants to be one of Europe’s most innovative and tech-lead economies. 

One politician from the ruling National Coalition Party ratcheted up the rhetoric over the weekend by framing the students as ‘left-wing invaders’ who were unreasonably demanding more grants and allowances from the state; while opposition politicians from the Social Democrats questioned why members of parliament were willing to make welfare cuts, but not willing to go to the protest and explain why they were doing it, face-to-face.

What would Jesus do? Finland’s churches get involved

Meanwhile a Helsinki parish church described it as “ungodly” to cut money from already low-income and disadvantaged people, and the official Turku Cathedral social media accounts posted a similar message of support, saying “caring for your loved ones is part of the Christian faith, regardless of party affiliation.” 

The ‘occupy education’ strikes have even spread to some Finnish high schools, first in the capital region and now several other cities, as the union representing high school students, Lukio, encourages its teenage members to speak up.

“There are a lot of protests taking place everywhere around the country, and I think the government will have to pay attention, but I’m not too hopeful they will change,” Lukio chairperson Ella Siltanen tells Euronews.

The Finnish government promised to send a statement to Euronews about the ongoing situation, but failed to do so before publication.

Government’s attempts at labour market reform

Alongside cuts to student benefits and tighter immigration measures, the government is also proposing some of the widest reforms to the labour market in decades, and while experts agree that Finland’s social security system and labour market regulations are ripe for overhaul, Finns are reluctant to embrace wholesale change.

A previous attempt at sweeping reforms in the early 1990s fell by the wayside after unions threatened a nationwide general strike; and more recently, the introduction of a so-called ‘activation model’ to get people off benefits and into employment introduced by PM Juha Sipilä’s government in 2018 was met with widespread protests, as it essentially punished unemployed jobseekers who couldn’t find work. 

The deeply unpopular activation model was largely rolled back by the next, left-wing, government after it was revealed more than 90,000 people had their benefits cut.

Unions launch three weeks of targeted strike action

The current government swept into office on a promise to limit government borrowing, and rein in what they viewed as the ‘profligate’ spending of the Sanna Marin administration.

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But they’ve already blown through their own €10 billion borrowing limit, and are now acquiring debt at the same rate as Marin’s government, putting to rest any lingering notion that the fiscally conservative National Coalition Party is somehow naturally better at handling the economy than its left-wing counterpart the Social Democrats.

“I think we have to go back to the 1990s before we had this kind of government,” explains Jarkko Eloranta, the President of the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK.

“This is not an austerity budget the government has introduced, because they are giving tax relief for the most wealthy, like lowering taxes for people earning morning than €80,000 per year,” he tells Euronews.

“This is a reverse Robin Hood government, it takes from the poor and gives to the rich so in that sense it is only an austerity budget for low-income people.”

As part of the wider protests, Eloranta’s SAK has announced three weeks of targeted strike action in different sectors, and in different parts of the country. The union is flexing its muscle, hoping to give the government a taste of what could happen if they don’t walk back some of the policies that unions find problematic.

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“Of course we have other plans ahead if the situation continues, and I am quite sure the government is not shaken or backing down due to our current activities,” says Eloranta, hinting at the possible escalation of strike action. 

Finnish media reports that Minister of Finance Riikka Purra, leader of the far-right Finns Party, has refused to meet with senior trade union leaders since taking office in June. 

“The government says they are listening but there’s no real discussions, no real negotiations, they are just implementing their own policies,” says Eloranta.



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UAW strike brings blue-collar vs. billionaire battle to Detroit

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DETROIT — The United Auto Workers strike is bringing a blue-collar versus billionaire battle to the Motor City, just as UAW President Shawn Fain wanted.

The outspoken union leader has weaponized striking — historically a last resort for the union — after less than 24 hours into a work stoppage arguably better than any UAW president has in modern times.

It wasn’t by accident.

Fain, a quirky yet emboldened leader, has meticulously brought the UAW back into the national spotlight after decades of near irrelevance. He wants to represent not just union members but also America’s embattled middle class, which UAW helped create.

United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain joins UAW members who are on a strike, on the picket line at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, September 15, 2023.

Rebecca Cook | Reuters

To do so, he has leveraged a yearslong national labor movement and a growing disgust for wealthy individuals and corporations among many Americans — starting with his first time addressing the union’s more than 400,000 members during his inauguration speech in March.

“We’re here to come together to ready ourselves for the war against our only one and only true enemy, multibillion-dollar corporations and employers who refuse to give our members their fair share,” Fain said at the time. “It’s a new day in the UAW.”

Fain’s comments Friday morning as he joined UAW members and supporters picketing outside a Ford plant in Michigan — one of three facilities the company is currently striking — echoed everything he said during that first speech.

“We got to do what we got to do to get our share of economic and social justice in this strike,” Fain said outside the Ford Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup plant. “We’re going to be out here until we get our share of economic justice. And it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

Fain’s upbringing plays into his strong unionism and religious beliefs, which he has growingly talked about with members as he emphasizes “faith” in the UAW’s cause. Two of his grandparents were UAW GM retirees, and one grandfather started at Chrysler in 1937, the year the workers joined the union. Fain, who joined the UAW in 1994, even keeps one of his grandfather’s pay stubs in his wallet as “a reminder” of where he came from. 

National media and others really started paying attention to Fain when he said the union would withhold a reelection endorsement of President Joe Biden, who has called himself the “most pro-union president in history.” Fain and Biden have spoken and met, but the union leader has not shown much support for the president. In response to comments by the president Friday, Fain said: “Working people are not afraid. You know who’s afraid? The corporate media is afraid. The White House is afraid. The companies are afraid.”

While many past union leaders have talked such talk, Fain has thus far delivered on his promises to members without batting an eye — causing General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis to go into crisis mode this week as the UAW follows through on that promise to members.

“We’ve never seen anything like this; it’s frustrating,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau Thursday as he criticized Fain and the union for what he said was a lack of communication and counteroffers. “I don’t know what Shawn Fain is doing, but he’s not negotiating this contract with us, as it expires.”

In a statement Friday, Ford said that the UAW’s partial strike at its Michigan Assembly Plant has forced it to lay off about 600 workers.

“This is not a lockout,” Ford said. “This layoff is a consequence of the strike at Michigan Assembly Plant’s final assembly and paint departments, because the components built by these 600 employees use materials that must be e-coated for protection. E-coating is completed in the paint department, which is on strike.”

GM CEO Mary Barra echoed Farley’s feelings Friday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“I’m extremely frustrated and disappointed,” she said. “We don’t need to be on strike right now.”

Both CEOs said everything they could to indicate they believe Fain may not be bargaining in good faith without using those exact words, which could justify a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

The UAW in late August filed unfair labor practice charges against GM and Stellantis with the NLRB, alleging they did not bargain with the union in good faith or a timely manner. It did not file a complaint against Ford. GM and Stellantis have denied those allegations.

Ford CEO Jim Farley: No way we would be sustainable as a company with UAW's wage proposal

Several past union leaders and company bargainers who spoke to CNBC hailed the way Fain has been able to propel the UAW into the national spotlight, including pausing bargaining for a Friday rally and march with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the progressive lawmaker from Vermont. Sanders, whose surprise 2016 Democratic presidential primary win in Michigan helped cement his national prominence, has lent support to numerous labor movements around the country as he rails against the billionaire class.

“I think they’re just doing an outstanding job,” said respected former UAW President Bob King, who cited growing support for the union among the public and the union’s own members. “Both those measurements say that UAW communications has been outstanding.”

UAW members have taken notice — especially after many of them disdained union leadership during and after a yearslong federal corruption investigation that landed two past UAW presidents and more than a dozen others in prison.

“For all the years that I’ve worked here, it’s never been this strong,” said Anthony Dobbins, a 27-year autoworker, early Friday morning while picketing the Ford plant in Michigan. “This is going to make history right here because we are trying to get what we deserve.”

Dobbins, a UAW Local 600 union representative, balked at current record offers by the automakers that have included roughly 20% pay increases, thousands of dollars in bonuses, retention of the union’s platinum health care and other sweetened benefits.

“That’s not working for us. Give us what we asked for,” Dobbins said. “That’s what we want. We have to work seven days, overtime, just to make ends meet.”

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, center, poses with Anthony Dobbins, right, a 27-year autoworker, and others as the union pickets a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, Sept. 15, 2023.

Michael Wayland / CNBC

Key demands from the union have included 40% hourly pay increases; a reduced, 32-hour, workweek; a shift back to traditional pensions; the elimination of compensation tiers; and a restoration of cost-of-living adjustments. Other items on the table include enhanced retiree benefits and better vacation and family leave benefits.

Automakers have argued such demands would cripple the companies. Farley even said the company would have “gone bankrupt by now” under the union’s current proposals and members would not have benefited from $75,000 in average profit-sharing over the last decade.

Ford sources said the automaker would have lost $14.4 billion over the last four years if the current demands had been in effect, instead of recording nearly $30 billion in profits.

Such profits are exactly what Fain has said UAW members deserve to share in. But his strategy to get workers a larger piece of the pie carries great risks.

“This is not going to be positive from an industry perspective or for GM,” Barra said Friday.

Many outside the union believe if Fain pushes too hard, it could lead to long-term job losses for the union. A former high-ranking bargainer for one of the automakers told CNBC that it’s nearly guaranteed the companies cut union jobs through product allocation, plant closures or other means to offset increased labor costs.

“They’re going to have to pay up. The question is how much,” said the longtime bargainer, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. “This ends up with fewer jobs. That’s how the automakers cut costs.”

Fain and other union leaders have argued that meeting the companies in the middle has led to dozens of plant closures, fewer union members and a growing divide between blue-collar workers and the wealthy.

So why not fight?

“This is about us doing what we got to do to take care of the working class,” Fain said Friday. “This isn’t just about the UAW. This is about working people everywhere in this country. No matter what you do for a living, you deserve your fair share of equity.”

GM CEO Mary Barra on UAW strike: We put a historic offer on the table

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‘They effectively stop the economy’: Deadly protests erupt over Cape Town taxi strike

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Violence has erupted all around Cape Town following last week’s announcement of a disruptive taxi strike against new local legislation allowing authorities to impound irregular vehicles. In the absence of this critical mode of transportation, commuters living in nearby townships have been left stranded – an issue that has primarily impacted Cape Town’s Black residents.

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Shocking videos of buses on fire and civilian cars being hit with stones are circulating online following a taxi strike in Cape Town that has stretched on for more than a week.

The South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) announced a one-week regional strike on August 3 after local authorities passed a law that allows them to impound vehicles violating technical and legal requirements. 

The minibuses run by taxi companies are an essential mode of transportation for most South African commuters. Over 80% of public transportation users depend on taxis to get to their workplace, according to the national statistics agency. 

Taxi companies protested the law by blockading highways around Cape Town, keeping local buses and civilians from circulating in and out of the city. 


In the early days of the strike, workers from townships surrounding Cape Town were forced to sleep in bus stations, fight their way onto overcrowded buses or make their way through traffic jams on foot. 

Protesters torched police cars, taxis, buses and civilian cars alike. Some videos show them attacking civilian vehicles with stones. So far at least five people have died in the protests.



‘Violence affects the very people that support the taxi industry, the commuters’

While taxi drivers try to put pressure on the authorities to revoke the legislation allowing them to seize vehicles, working class people living in the townships around Cape Town are the most affected by their actions.

Geoff Mamputa, an independent mediator who has been working on the taxi conflicts in the Western Cape for years, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team how everyday people are being instrumentalised in the protests.  

If [the taxi drivers] stop these people that are providing essential services, they effectively stop the economy of Cape Town from functioning. It’s a way of putting pressure on the authorities. This only affects people in townships which is the unintentional aspect of it. Violence is being done against the very people that support the taxi industry, the commuters that use them to get to work. They are the ones that are suffering the most right now. The taxi drivers should take their anger against the State, not against the commuters.

Because of the central role of taxis in public transportation, rivalries between different companies are common and sometimes descend into violence to the detriment of commuters.   

‘The authorities are very reluctant to build working class housing within the town’

The taxi strike has had such an immense impact on Cape Town residents due to racialised urban planning that has continued even after the end of the apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

During apartheid, Black communities were deliberately banished from cities, but Mamputa explains that the high accommodation prices within the city perpetuate the same type of segregation. 

Most townships are at least 5 km away from Cape Town so these people are dependent on public transport. The authorities are very reluctant to build working class housing within the town. They are perpetuating the old apartheid way of planning. So people are being pushed out of town. Communities are not integrated. So you get different segregated communities: the White people, people who are mixed race, the Black, the Indian…

I was born in the city, but my family was pushed away by these policies. We moved and my father had to leave at 4am to get to work at 7:30am.

Now, commuters are forced to stay at home or walk considerable distances to get to work.  

My cousin walked from Woodstock in Cape Town all the way to Gugulethu. It’s 20 to 25 kilometres away. But she could not use the highway because it was blocked, she had to go through other suburbs. She left work at 4:30pm and arrived home at 8:45pm.

‘The taxi strikes became a political campaign’

So far discussions between the local politicians and SANTACO have had no results. The local councillor in charge of safety and security, JP Smith, threatened to “proceed with impounding 25 vehicles for every truck, bus, vehicle or facility that is burnt or vandalised” during the ongoing protests. 

While the national South African law on transportation allows public transport vehicles to be impounded for breaching licence conditions, taxi drivers claim that the current crackdown is overblown. 

The local Cape Town government has put together an ambitious public transport development plan to be implemented between 2023 and 2028 which would potentially diminish the central role of taxis in favour of trains and buses. Mamputa says that the authorities “have to get rid of the taxis” to implement their plan, which might be one of the underlying reasons for the crackdown.  

The South African Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said on August 8 the actions of Cape Town officials are beyond the law. With national elections taking place next year, Mamputa says that the taxi strikes have been turned into a political opportunity. The current governing party, the African National Congress, which has been in power since the end of apartheid, is strongly opposing the leading party in Western Cape, the Democratic Alliance (DA), a party which emerged after apartheid when a number of liberal, predominantly White parties merged. 

There are national elections this year so the whole situation became a political campaign. This is beyond taxis. Because Cape Town is run by a different party, the DA, which is a traditional White party, these ideological differences are now coming to a fall.

Despite the declared end date of the strike being August 10, the Taxi Council announced the continuation of the shutdown in the absence of a productive dialogue with the local authorities.



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Explained | Why is France seeing widespread protests over Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms?

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The story so far: Protesters on Friday, March 17, clashed with the police at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, near the National Assembly (Lower House) building amid growing unrest over the ruling government’s decision to change the state pension age from 62 to 64, meaning people would have to work longer to get a full state pension.

Nationwide demonstrations, which have seen crowds of over a million people and large-scale workers’ strikes since the start of the year, have largely remained fairly peaceful. But on Thursday, March 16, riot police and protesters clashed in the capital after President Emmanuel Macron’s administration used a special provision in the Constitution to push through the contentious pension reform without holding a vote in the National Assembly (where it does not enjoy a majority) as the House plunged into uproar with Opposition politicians singing the French national anthem and holding protest signs in Parliament.

What does the new pension reform seek to do?

In France, all retirees get a state pension. This is how the system works— mandatory payroll taxes apaid by those currently working fund the pensions of retirees, meaning generations have been able to retire with an assured, state-backed pension. French politicians laud the system for creating “solidarity between the generations”.

Now, the government argues that as life expectancy in France increases and so does its ageing population (meaning more retirees than new entrants into the workforce), the current pension system will fall short in the coming decades. According to the administration’s projections, while there were 2.1 workers putting money into the system for every one retiree in 2000, this figure dropped to 1.7 workers per retiree in 2020, and is expected to further slide to 1.2 by 2070.

The government says the measure to gradually raise the legal retirement age by three months every year, till it reaches 64 by 2030, is “indispensable” in order to balance the pension system and keep it financially viable. While announcing the last-minute decision to use special provision 49:3 of the Constitution to pass the bill without voting in the National Assembly, French Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne said: “We cannot gamble on the future of our pensions. That reform is necessary.”

The change in retirement age from the current 62 to 64 means that people will have to work longer or contribute payroll taxes for a greater number of years to get a full state pension. By this logic of a phased increase of three months every year till 2030, those who were born in 1961 and were due to retire this year will have to work an additional three months in order to get a full pension. Those born in 1968 will have to be 64 and completed 43 years of work when they retire in order to get their dues.

There are exceptions, however. Those starting work between the ages of 14 to 19 will be able to seek early retirement, as will public workers engaged in physically or mentally arduous jobs. The government also says it will put in place a ‘seniors’ index’ to check if companies are making progress in hiring and training seniors so that they don’t get left out as the retirement age increases.

The reform will also put an end to a dozen or so “special regimes” with different retirement ages and benefits for different categories of workers including rail workers, electricity and gas workers, and central bank staff. However, the changes will only apply to new workers in these sectors—existing workers will still benefit from the special regimes.

The minimum retirement age only applies to those who have worked enough years to qualify. French newspaper Le Monde notes that like in the present system, many women who pause their careers to raise children and people who study for longer and start their careers late, must work till the age of 67 to retire with full pension benefits.

The government highlighted the potential outcomes of the pension reform, stating that new retirees will get a guaranteed minimum pension of not less than 85% of the total minimum wage— about 1,200 euros per month at current levels. The government also plans to index the pensions to inflation levels for those who receive minimum incomes, a year after retirement. It says that the pensions of the poorest 30% of retirees will increase by 2-5%. It also argues that while the new system will balance the pension budget by 2030, no reforms to the regime would mean an expected pension fund deficit of 13.5 billion euros in 2030.

Why has this made people angry?

France currently has one of the lowest qualifying ages for a state pension among big European economies. , The Guardian notes, and the government puts in a significant amount to support the social protection system.

The French cherish the retirement system, as well as national healthcare, as it is seen as hard-earned, having been introduced by the National Resistance Council after the Second World War, when the country was reeling from the aftermath of the war.

Generations of workers have accepted high mandatory taxes to fund the pension system because it creates interdependence and guarantees state-backed pension earnings. The new system means current workers will have to work longer to sustain pensions for the ballooning aged population. Life expectancy has also increased— it was 82 in 2020 as per World Bank figures.

Observers also worry that the reform will negatively affect blue-collar workers who often start working young, have shorter life expectancies, or have less optimum working conditions compared to white-collar workers.

Opponents of the reform argue that instead of altering the pension age, the government could have balanced the system through other measures— like increasing payroll taxes paid by workers, taxing the wealthy more, or not tying pensions to inflation. Others also argue that Mr. Macron’s government is amplifying the danger of the system’s projected deficit. The New York Times reported that France’s official body for monitoring the pension system has also said there is no immediate threat of the system going bust, adding that long-term deficits are hard to predict correctly.

Have pension reforms faced such opposition before?

Pension reforms have long been a contentious issue in French politics, having prompted widespread protests in 1995 and 2010. In fact, this is not the Macron administration’s first time facing harsh opposition to pension overhaul. Pension reform has been one of Mr. Macron’s campaign promises since he was first elected in 2017. In 2019, his administration attempted to introduce a different reform which would not raise the retirement age but get rid of the special regimes of benefits and pension ages for different categories of workers. These reforms were also met with large-scale street protests, strikes, and one of the biggest walkouts by transportation workers, impacting public transport. The reform was then stalled as a result of the pandemic.

What’s next?

After Ms. Borne used special powers to pass the Pension Bill in the Assembly without a vote, two Opposition Groups filed no-confidence motions against the Macron government. These motions were scheduled to be heard on Monday, March 20, but are unlikely to succeedin dislodging the government. Opposition parties from across the aisle would have to come together for such a vote to have a decisive outcome. However, one of the motions was filed by a group of parties on the Left while far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party brought in the second one. Another major party, Les Republicains, decided to stay away from no-confidence motions to avoid potential “chaos”.

Meanwhile, protests continued to intensify, turning violent in some places, with the police banning demonstrations in parts of Central Paris. So, far eight coordinated nationwide protests have taken place since mid-January along with regular demonstrations by civilians and a coordinated group of labour unions in various parts of the country.

A new day of nationwide industrial action has been planned for Thursday, March 23. Over 10,000 tonnes of garbage piled up on the streets of Paris as sanitation workers refused to end their strike, also blocking the waste collection plant hosting Europe’s biggest incinerator. Traffic and fuel deliveries were also impacted by protest actions. The left-wing CGT, one of the biggest trade unions spearheading the protests, has asked members to stop work at schools, factories, and other places. Teachers’ unions have also called for strikes this week.

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