Union activists barged into the Paris headquarters of luxury goods company LVMH yesterday, saying the French government should shelve plans to make people work longer for their pension and tax the rich more instead.
In a 12th day of nationwide protests since mid-January, striking workers also disrupted garbage collection in Paris and blocked river traffic on part of the Rhine river in eastern France.
“You’re looking for money to finance pensions? Take it from the pockets of billionaires,” said Sud Rail union leader Fabien Villedieu, as the LVMH headquarters filled with red smoke from flares. The protesters then left peacefully.
Trade unions urged a show of force on the streets a day before the Constitutional Council’s ruling on the legality of the bill that will raise the state pension age by two years to 64.
If the Council gives its approval, possibly with some caveats, the government will be entitled to promulgate the law, and will hope this will eventually put an end to protests, which have at times turned violent, and coalesced widespread anger against Macron.
But protesters said they would keep up the fight if the Council gave a green light.
“We don’t want to work until 64,” 50-year-old teacher Kathy Brochard said at the Paris rally.
Protesters want the bill withdrawn – or subjected to a referendum.
“We still hope that, at some point, someone in high places will decide to abandon this law, sit around a table and look at pension funding differently,” 52-year-old postal service worker Francis Bourget said at the Paris rally.
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