French union bosses take retirement-age protests to countryside as vote looms

By Michel Rose and Tassilo Hummel

PARIS (Reuters) -French union bosses took their demonstration against a planned pension reform to a small southern town on Thursday, as strikes showed signs of faltering ahead of a key parliamentary vote on raising the retirement age by two years to 64.

Unions were in their fifth day of protests against the reform, wary that winter school holidays that start in two days could break their momentum.

“The idea today is to keep up the mobilisation… today’s (turnout) figures don’t matter,” said Philippe Martinez, leader of the hardline CGT union as he joined fellow union leaders at a march in Albi, a provincial town near Toulouse.

Unions have so far been successful in mobilising big and more diverse crowds to protest on the streets, especially in small and mid-sized cities across France. Staging the main march in Albi and not Paris was an attempt to amplify that.

But there were signs that fewer people were downing tools and stopping work, feeling the pinch of lower or no salaries for each strike day.

An interior ministry source said 440,000 people had marched nationwide, less than half the estimated 963,000 on Feb. 11.

On Feb. 7, some 757,000 demonstrated, already down from the first two rallies, which tallied 1.1 million on Jan. 19 and 1.27 million on Jan. 31.

“My employer agrees that I strike for fractions of a few hours… I was working before and will be working after,” said Sylvie Lariviere, a social worker who joined protests in the streets of Douai in the north. Numerous similar demonstrations kicked off from mid-day across the country.

Public railway company SNCF said most trains were running as normal, in contrast with strong disruptions during previous protest days. Oil major TotalEnergies flagged that operations were disrupted at only one of its refineries.

At state-owned utility EDF, the number of striking workers fell further to 27.25%, from 37% on Feb. 7 and as much as 46.5% during the first strike on Jan. 19.

Union leaders are trying to maintain momentum until March 7, when they have threatened to “bring the country to a halt” if Macron does not drop the reform bill now being debated in parliament.

Macron is pushing for the reform, calling it vital to avoid the collapse of the state pension system.

The government is short of an outright majority and needs to win over several dozen lawmakers from Les Republicains party in the lower house, before the bill passes to the conservative-controlled Senate, the upper house.

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Michel Rose, additional reporting by Pascal Rossignol and GV De Clercq; Editing by Sharon Singleton and David Gregorio)