The General Confederation of Workers in France announced that half a million people demonstrated today, Tuesday, in Paris alone, as part of nationwide rallies and strikes, opposing the pension reform project supported by the government of President Emmanuel Macron.
And the “Agence France Presse” agency stated that the number of demonstrators today, amounting to 500 thousand, is higher than the number of demonstrators who went out to demonstrate on January 19, which is 400 thousand.
But the Interior Ministry gave a much lower figure of 80,000 demonstrators.
A police source said that the authorities are preparing for up to 1.2 million protesters to take to the streets across the country, which could exceed the 1.1 million who took to the streets on January 19.
The French government had recently adopted during a meeting of the Council of Ministers a controversial project aimed at reforming the retirement system.
The draft includes an essential clause to raise the ceiling for the retirement age to 64 years instead of the current age of 62 years.
The government confirmed its determination not to make any concessions in this regard.
The major trade unions unanimously reject, as well as the bulk of the opposition forces and a large majority of the French, according to opinion polls, to postpone the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
500 thousand people demonstrate in Paris against pension reform
