Sarkozy changes pension reform but strike still on

French President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled minor changes to the government's pension reform bill on Wednesday, as France faces the prospect of indefinite strikes in protest at the new law. The opposition says that the amendments, which will benefit large families and parents with disabled children, simply reinstate rights that Sarkozy had previously planned to axe.

Reuters

The changes will mean that parents who have interrupted their careers to look after their children, either because they have more than three children or because their child has disabilities, will still be able to retire on a full pension at 65, rather than 67.

The exception will cost an estimated 3.4 billion euros to 2022. Labour Minister Eric Woerth told the Senate, which continued debating the bill on Thursday, that it will be partly financed by new taxes.

Opposition Socialist senators described the amendments as "a smokescreen". The party's Senate leader, Jean-Pierre Bel, accused Sarkozy of "turning the debate into theatre" by reversing reforms his own party had introduced.

A total of 1,200 amendments to the controversial bill have been submitted for consideration by the Senate, the majority of them by opposition parties hoping to hold up the ratification process.

Woerth says all proposals will be examined by 15 October, when senators are due to vote on the legislation. He insists that the government will not revise the its core proposals to raise the minimum retirement age.

Trade unions said Thursday's amendments would not stop them opposing the pension bill.

They've called a general strike from 12 October, with unions in several industries leaving their options open as to whether they will continue the action indefinitely.

The action is set to paralyse France, with unions calling on workers on the national rail network, Paris public transport, national airline Air France, state gas and electricity companies and public television stations to walk out.

But an indefinite general strike is not yet on the cards, the leader of the powerful CGT union, Bernard Thibault, said on Thursday.

A call would be a "completely abstract, abstruse slogan" that would not necessarily serve unions' interests, he told French radio station RTL.

Union leaders may believe that prolonged strike action risks damaging public support for the unions' cause, which recent polls have put at more than 70 per cent.

Pension protests in Bulgaria, too

Five-thousand people demonstrated against pension reform in Bulgaria Thursday. The protesters object to an increase in the number of years’ contributions needed to receive a full pension, which is also one of the French government's proposals.

The protest was organised by one of the country’s two major union federations.

Bulgaria’s minimum age for retirement will remain unchanged at 60 for women and 63 for men.

The government of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov has withdrawn the pensions plan for further consultations and signed a deal with the unions to raise social security contributions by three per cent, with employers’s share going up 1.8 per cent.