Lower turnout for May Day marches
Government's pensions reform plan fails to get as many workers on the street as last year's record May 1 protest
THE NUMBER of people taking part in this year's May 1 demonstrations around France fell by more than half compared with last year's record turnout.
About 195,000 workers took to the streets on the fête du travail according to the Interior Ministry. The unions claimed 350,000 demonstrators.
This is a significant drop on last year, when marches attracted somewhere between 456,000 people (according to police) and 1.2 million (the CGT union estimate).
The biggest gathering this year, in Paris, saw between 21,000 and 45,000 workers taking part. Other demonstrations in Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, Grenoble, Caen, Rennes, Nantes and Rouen attracted several thousand workers each.
The CGT union said the turnout was "creditable" and on a par with previous years, excluding the record turnout of 2009.
Last year, the eight leading French trade unions agreed to march together for the first time to mark concerns over the government’s handling of the economic crisis.
Five of them - the CGT, CFDT, FSU, Unsa and Solidiares - remained united this year, while the three others including the Force Ouvière union split off and organised separate demonstrations.
The biggest cause of complaint among workers was the French government's proposed reform of the retirement and pension system - including a possible increase in the state pension age, currently 60.
Unions are due to meet the president on May 10 to discuss the pension reform bill, which the government wants to put to parliament by mid-June and hopefully pass in September.
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