French government faces protests, strikes over pension bill

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French government faces protests, strikes over pension bill

France is facing a third day of strikes and mass street demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise the pension age to 64 after the government faced shouting and booing in parliament as lawmakers debated the bill.

Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to take part in more than 200 street demonstrations across France on Tuesday, from major cities to small towns. Trains and urban transport will be severely disrupted, and one in five flights at Paris's Orly airport will be cancelled. Some schools will close as teachers strike. Students are blocking several university buildings in France.

Polls show that a majority of French people don't approve of Macron's plan to raise the retirement age to 64 and increase the number of years people must make contributions for a full pension. The retirement age of 62 is the lowest of any major European economy.

On Monday night, Macron s ruling centrist grouping faced furious scenes of shouting and desk-banging in parliament at the start of the debate on the plans.

Macron's centrists are in a weakened position in parliament after losing their absolute majority in a general election last June. They are facing tense negotiations to convince legislators from the rightwing party, Les R, to pass the pensions bill. Without the support of the right, the government could in theory resort to controversial executive powers to push through the plans without a vote. The prime minister, lisabeth Borne, wants to avoid this, conscious of the uproar and further protests it could cause.

In heated scenes in parliament on Monday, ministers at first struggled to be heard as the opposition on the left shouted that they had brought chaos to the country. Macron's leader of the house spoke about the length of the debate and the shouting and interruptions. The lawmakers on the left yelled back as desks were banged.

One radical leftist legislator told the government that the younger generation hates you. The far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced that several of her female lawmakers had received suspicious and fraudulent voicemail messages to their phones during the debate, telling them that their child was in the hospital. She complained of a trick to get her lawmakers to rush away from parliament during the vote. She said she had filed a legal complaint with the police but didn't say who could have been responsible.

There will be a day of street demonstrations on Saturday.