France’s punishing transportation troubles may ease up slightly over
Christmas — but unions plan renewed strikes and
protests in January to resist government plans to raise the retirement age to 64.
Protesters kept up the pressure on President
Emmanuel Macron with a lively march Thursday through
Paris, banging tambourines and demanding that he scrap his signature retirement reform.
The centrist Macron, a former investment banker, says the current pension system is unfair and costs too much; unions say the pension reform threatens hard-won worker rights, and want to preserve a system that allows some workers to retire as early as their 50s.