Vote fuels bitter French divisions as final, largest strikes loom
Polls show that most people feel strikes against pension reform are justified, but the Senate vote in favour of the measures should be respected and the oil refinery blockades should end
A flurry of polls revealed yesterday that France is bitterly divided over continuing industrial action as the country braced itself for a further round of strikes, protests and blockades.
On Friday, the upper house of the French parliament voted in favour of a pension reform raising the retirement age to 62. Union leaders have called for two more general strikes and French schoolchildren have threatened continued protests through the holidays. As the authorities struggled to restore petrol supplies across the country following the blockading of France's 12 oil refineries, opinion polls gave a confused and contradictory picture of the level of support for more industrial action.
In an IFOP survey, 63% declared the two new days of strikes to be "justified", while a similar poll by Opinion Way found that, although around half of all French people sympathised with the strikes, 56% believed the parliamentary vote should be respected and the unions should stop industrial action.
The IFOP poll also found that 53% believed the raising of the pension age from 60 to 62 was acceptable, and Opinion Way declared that 59% disapproved of the action against petrol refineries and 63% believed the government was right to smash the blockades.
Friday evening's vote by the Senate was a vital step in the government's reforms and came after three weeks of deliberations and the use of a controversial emergency constitutional measure to speed the bill through the upper house.
The move brought anger from the Socialist party opposition. "You have not finished with pensions. You have ignored the French people. You have not listened to our proposals. Your reform is unfair," Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Socialist Senate group, said. Another opposition senator, Pierre Mauroy, 82, said he was "dismayed" by the vote but added: "I don't consider myself beaten because this business is not finished."
Dominique Moisi, of the French Institute for International Relations, said it was impossible to predict what happens next. "I'm fascinated to know myself," he said. "I believe [President Nicolas] Sarkozy will win the pension battle but he risks losing the presidential war. People want things to return to normal. Everyone is aware our system of social protection will have to change, but what will remain in the public opinion is the image of an authoritarian, arrogant president who is reluctant to [engage in] dialogue and is very nervy."
Sarkozy, who has made pension reform the central measure of his first term in office, is determined that the final vote will take place on Tuesday after which the changes become law.
On the other side, union leaders have called for a massive mobilisation for two more days of strikes and protests, the first on Thursday, then on 6 November. Students have vowed to step up demonstrations that have already seen clashes with riot police, looting and arrests.
Anger has been fuelled because in the runup to the presidential elections in France in the spring of 2007 and after his election, Sarkozy insisted: "The right to retire at 60 years must remain."
The views of Robert Piot, a 58-year-old unemployed man, are typical of those determined to continue the protests. "To me it's a simple question of balance and mathematics: there is a pot of jobs in France and either you make older people work longer or you let young people have those jobs." (guardian.co.uk)
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