Commuters on the Paris metro faced another day of travel havoc Thursday as unions pressed their strike against a planned pension reform. (Philippe LOPEZ)
<p>Paris (AFP) – French officials said Thursday they were open to negotiate pension reforms that have sparked crippling transport strikes, as unions warned they would keep up the walkout through the holidays unless the government drops the plan.</p><p>Commuters faced an eighth day of travel chaos in Paris as most metro lines were again closed, while just one in four high-speed TGV and regional trains were running.</p><p>Unions unanimously rejected a plan unveiled Wednesday for a single pension system that maintains the legal retirement age at 62 but with reduced payouts unless a person works until at least 64.</p><p>"There’s room for negotiating, over the terms for arduous jobs, over the methods for balancing the budget," Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told France 2 television.</p><p>But even France’s moderate CFDT union, the country’s largest and long in favour of a single points-based pension system, said the government had crossed a "red line" and called for a fresh day of mass demonstrations for December 17.</p><p>"To have a compromise within reach, and then throw it away over a question of budgetary dogmatism, is a huge mistake," CFDT chief Laurent Berger told French daily Les Echos.</p><p>"There won’t be any Christmas truce," warned Laurent Brun, head of the transport arm at France’s hard-line CGT union, the largest among public-sector workers including those at rail operator SNCF.</p><p>"We didn’t want this, but the government is standing firm, so this is going to go on for a long time," he told France Info radio.</p><p></p><p>- ‘I’d be on strike too’ -</p><p></p><p>A poll by the Elabe institute released Thursday found France evenly divided over the pension reforms, with 50 percent of respondents approving and 49 percent against.</p><p>But the poll also found that 54 percent rejected the proposed "pivot age" of 64 for a full pension, and 54 percent supported the unions’ protest.</p><p>Jonathan Poireau, a 19-year-old student at the station in Mantes-la-Jolie, a suburb northwest of Paris, said he sympathises with the strikers, even if it meant he had to wait 40 minutes for a train.</p><p>"If I were a rail worker I’d be on strike too. They have advantages and they’re defending them," he told AFP.</p><p>The reform would do away with 42 separate schemes offering early retirement and other benefits mainly to public-sector workers, by phasing in a single system over the next several years.</p><p>Hundreds of CGT union workers blocked the major Atlantic port at Le Havre on Thursday, barricading gates and setting tires on fire, while ports were also blocked at Rouen, La Rochelle and Marseille.</p><p>In the northern city of Neuville-en-Ferrain near Lille, workers at the power company Enedis cut electricity to a shopping mall and supermarket, forcing dozens of stores to close.</p><p></p><p>- ‘Let’s discuss it’ -</p><p></p><p>Le Maire called on the CFDT in particular to return to the bargaining table, saying the government was ready to hear its proposals.</p><p>"We propose the age of 64, with a bonus and penalty system," he said. "Are there better solutions? Perhaps, so let’s discuss it."</p><p>Gilles Le Gendre, head of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist lawmakers, also urged Berger to reopen talks.</p><p>"Since yesterday, everyone is saying the age of 64 is set in stone, but that is not true," he told Cnews television.</p><p>The government says the reform will help erase pension system deficits forecast to reach as much as 17 billion euros ($19 billion) by 2025.</p><p>Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who outlined the plan’s details Wednesday after months of talks with unions, admitted that most people would have to work longer to maintain the pension system, one of the world’s most generous.</p><p>The average French person retires at just over 60, three years earlier than elsewhere in Europe, and four years before the average for wealthy nations in the OECD, according to OECD figures.</p><p></p>

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