November 2007 Strikes in France - Cause of The Strikes

Cause of The Strikes

France's national labour law permits workers in certain hazardous or difficult professions to retire with full pension benefits after 37.5 years rather than 40 years. The Sarkozy administration claims the current pension system allows some public sector workers to retire as early as age 50. The government calculated the cost of these early-retirement benefits at $7 billion a year.

President Nicolas Sarkozy feels that his victory in the 2007 presidential election gave him a mandate to carry out labour reforms, stating "I said before I was elected what I would do," and "we will do these reforms because they have to be done." He declared the strikes a test of political will. "I will pursue these reforms to the end," he said in a speech to the European Parliament. "Nothing will blow me off course."

Prime Minister François Fillon attacked the unions for depriving millions of French people "of their fundamental freedom—the freedom of movement and even perhaps to work."

Bernard Thibault, the secretary of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), France's second-largest labour union, compared the strikes to the 1995 strikes in France, saying, "The general discontent is as strong as then," and "We're not trying to copy 1995, but the strike could last."