Public transportation stopped or limited, schools and offices closed, and mass demonstrations mark a panorama that the unions hope should exert enough pressure so as to push back the Executive´s plan, currently being examined in the Senate.

More than 250 protests are expected in France in rejection of a reform questioned by raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64, increasing contributions, and eliminating special pension regimes.

The Inter-syndical, which brings together the eight main unions in France, called for a national strike, will decide each day whether to maintain it in response to the Government’s refusal to yield after mass protests that took to the streets on January 19 and 31 and on February 7, 11 and 16.

The current actions are beginning to be compared to the social movement of late 1995 when protests forced the Government of the then Prime Minister Alain Juppé to withdraw a pension reform.

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