Strike Day

 Today is a strike day, protesting against the government's plans to increase retirement age in France. At present men retire at 62 and women at 60. The plan is that everyone should retire at 64.

The government argue that this is necessary to fund the pension system as people live longer.

The unions argue that the pension system is not showing undue financial strain, and that a small increase in contributions would enable current retirement ages to be maintained.

Between 16,000 and 100,000 people marched in Bordeaux. This huge range of possibilities is quite normal here - the police give a low estimate of how many people marched, while the unions give a high estimate, and there is always a lot of clear distance between the two figures.


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