French workers strike against Sarkozy

This video from France is called Protests against Sarkozy’s expulsion of Roma.

French unions hold pensions strike

Workers stage strikes and nationwide protests over Sarkozy‘s overhaul plans, disrupting public transport and services

Last Modified: 07 Sep 2010 10:35 GMT

French workers have launched a day of mass protest against Nicolas Sarkozy‘s plan to raise the retirement age.

Unions called Tuesday’s strike in order to derail the pensions overhaul bill, the centrepiece of the president‘s political agenda, which was to be presented to parliament later in the day.

By mid-morning, rail and air traffic services had been disrupted while schools and hospitals were also expected to be affected.

However, it was too early to tell whether they had matched the level of a similar protest in June, when between up to two million people marched in towns and cities across the country.

“We can see that employees are mobilised,” Francois Chereque, leader of the CFDT union, told RTL radio, predicting that the turnout would match or more likely exceed that of June.

“It looks like a success.”

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Bernard Thibault, head of the larger CGT union, warned on Europe 1 radio: “If we don’t get a hearing there will be further steps to this mobilisation, and nothing has been ruled out.”

Protesters gathered outside the French embassy in London last Saturday to demonstrate against president Nicholas Sarkozy’s recent expulsion of Roma communities from the country: here.

A majority of French people (70%) approve of the Sept. 7 trade union day of mobilization against the bill on retirements, according to an IFOP opinion poll done for Dimanche Ouest-France newspaper. The slim majority that considers it “acceptable” to raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 62, the key measure in the reform, declined further in September (53% as against 58% in June): here.