France hit by more pension reform strikes

French commuters squeezed onto limited public transport and fought for rare parking spots on Thursday as another round of strikes against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 hobbled trains, planes and schools across France.

Fewer than half the lines of the Paris Metro were working normally, according to the RATP public transit network, and half the scheduled long-haul trains were expected to be cancelled, according to the SNCF state-run rail system.

Many flights were cancelled at Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports, the Paris airport authority said. Post offices and even opera houses were hit too.

Security was higher than usual at some Metro stations, where soldiers armed with machine-guns were on patrol. In recent days, top officials have warned that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil was at a record high.

In all, 232 demonstrations were being held nationwide. Thousands of protesters, many decked out in labour union T-shirts or brandishing signs, streamed into the Place de la Bastille, where the French Revolution began.

Union leaders were seeking a massive show of popular discontent, hoping to beat the Sept. 7 protests that brought an estimated 1.1 million people into the streets over reforms to the deficit-burdened pension system.

One protest in the southern city of Toulouse drew between 25,000 and 120,00 people, depending on whether the estimates came from regional authorities or protest organizers. Those numbers were similar to the Sept. 7 protest.

"If the government remains deaf, we won't stop at this," Francois Chereque, the head of the moderate CFDT union, said in an interview in Le Parisien daily on Wednesday. "We are a lasting movement

Sarkozy has indicated he is willing to make marginal concessions but remains firm on the central pillar of the reform: increasing the mimiumum retirement age to 62 from 60 and pushing back the age from 65 to 67 for those who want to ensure they get full retirement benefits.

As baby boomers reach retirement age and life expectancy increases, the government says it is necessary to raise the retirement age so the pension system can break even by 2018.

The Eurostar undersea train service to London was not expected to be affected and the Thalys train from Belgium was only slightly disrupted, with nine in 10 trains running.

While the French capital's bus lines were running almost normally, commuters on some Metro lines had to queue up just to get on the platforms. Some commuters opted out of public transit, taking their cars or using Velib, Paris' rent-a-bike network, including Paris commuter Xavier Roth.

"Even the scooters struggle to ride between cars, and walking takes a long time, so for me a bicycle is the ideal compromise," he said.

The main teachers' union said more than 50 per cent of teachers were expected to join the strike, though the Education Ministry put the figure at a little more than 25 per cent.

At the SNCF national railway, about 38 per cent of employees heeded the call to strike, according to the management. Some SNCF unions have already called for new strikes beyond Thursday.

France's lower house has approved the pension reform, which goes soon to debate in the Senate. Even at 62, France would have one of the lowest retirement ages in Europe. Neighbouring Germany has decided to bump the retirement age to 67 from 65.