French strikes costing country $500 million a day

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Published time: October 26, 2010 18:21
Edited time: October 28, 2010 12:20

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Europe, Law, Protest, Sarkozy

Students across France are staging fresh protests against an unpopular overhaul of the pension system, following the French Senate’s approval of a controversial pension reform bill.

Despite the nationwide strikes, which are costing the country's economy over half a billion dollars a day, labor unions remain defiant and have already announced that more protests are planned.

Hundreds of people continued their protests on the streets of Paris, demanding change from the current government. All of their slogans are somehow directed at the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

The French people insist that the new pension bill, prolonging the retirement age to 62, is a violation of “their given and earned right” to retire at the age of 60.

The protest wave has arisen despite the fact that France enjoys one of the lowest retirement ages, having at the same time a huge foreign debt, the fourth largest in the world.

The pension reform is supposed to help the French economy get over the effects of the global financial crisis. However, to the French people it looks like nothing but a government attempt to ensure that they stay in their jobs longer and get paid less.

The French are planning a nationwide protest to take place on Thursday, but even now, with the student holidays, hundreds of young people are taking to the streets of Paris, making sure that their disappointment is well heard by the rest of the world.

Comments (7)

Anonymous user 28.04.2013 01:44

Costing WHO.???

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CassTete 28.10.2010 08:10

France and germany are being taken apart , though french like to protest a lot ( I'm half french ) the truth is that European governments are trying to take away the rights that we fought for so hard around 100 years ago . We use to work from daylight until daybreak and the simple truth is they are trying to make us go back to that state ! Sitting at home on your back side allows people like new overlord Obama to pass trillions of dollars of tax money to private banks without anyone asking questions . The only way to "occasionally" get your way is to " get up get out and do something "

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Filipe 27.10.2010 19:23

This reporter continues saying nonsense. How can she say that students are making the manifestation and at the same time says that the country is loosing 500 million a day? If the economy is collapsing it's only because because the working class is stagnated! How can students in vacation cost 500 million a day? RT is changing into regular media in my opinion. French people don't give up! You are an example.

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