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Paris/London CNN —French schools and transportation networks were heavily disrupted Tuesday for the second time this month, as unions staged another mass strike against government plans to raise the retirement age for most workers. Strikes that day brought the transportation network to a standstill and shuttered the Eiffel Tower to visitors. Air France (AFLYY) canceled 10% of short-haul flights but said strikes would not affect long-haul services. On Sunday, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said raising the retirement age was “not negotiable,” during an interview on domestic television station France Info. Raising the retirement age to 64 will keep France below the norm in Europe and in many other developed economies, where the age at which full pension benefits vest is 65 and increasingly moving towards 67.

Protests in major French cities, including Paris, Marseille, Toulouse, Nantes and Nice, brought transport services to a standstill. Eight of the biggest unions had called for a “first day of strikes and protests” against pension reforms unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Train lines across France were seeing “severe disruption,” according to French rail authority SNCF. Macron’s proposed pension reforms come as workers in France, as elsewhere, are being squeezed by rising food and energy bills. The French government has said that raising the retirement age is necessary to tackle a pension funding deficit.

Eight of France’s largest unions - covering transportation, education, police, executives and public sectors - called for Thursday to be the “first day of strikes and protests” against the proposed pensions reform. Widespread strikes are expected, and it may be “a hellish Thursday” on public transport networks, Transport Minister Clement Beaune warned French broadcaster France 2 Tuesday. Paris’ transport authority predicts “very disrupted” service on the city’s transport network. But many have blasted the reforms as ill-timed at best; at worst, an insult to hard-working people in France. “This reform falls at a moment where there is lots of anger, lots of frustration, lots of fatigue.

From September this year, the regular retirement age will increase by three months a year until 2030. The higher retirement age should tackle a pension funding deficit, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told reporters on Tuesday as she laid out the reforms. Revamping the pensions system has been a key element of French President Emmanuel Macron’s election campaigns. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the retirement age is between 66 and 67, depending on the year in which you were born. An earlier attempt by Macron to revamp the pensions system was met with nationwide strikes in 2019 before being abandoned during the Covid-19 pandemic.

One in two trains were canceled on some suburban rail lines in Paris and Eurostar canceled four services between the French and British capitals on Tuesday and Wednesday, blaming strike action. French unions called for a nationwide strike on Tuesday, expanding a weeks-long refineries strike that has caused fuel shortages and miles-long lines at gas stations. “There will be as many ordered back to work as necessary,” to respond to the needs of French people, Veran told France 2 television. He criticized ongoing blockades at refineries by French union CGT, given that a majority of workers had now agreed to wage deals with ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies. While ExxonMobil workers agreed to end their blockade of the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and depot in southern France late last week following salary negotiations, strikes continue at TotalEnergies refineries.

Paris CNN Business —French President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting with senior ministers on Monday to address crippling strikes at gas refineries that has caused fuel pumps to run dry. Elsewhere, nearly one third of gas stations have run out of at least one fuel, with the situation expected to worsen this week, according to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne. But French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the strikes were “unacceptable and illegitimate,” because wage agreements had been met with the majority of workers. Transportation minister Clement Beaune told France Inter that the only way out of the crisis is an end to strikes. On Sunday, thousands marched through central Paris to protest the crisis and “climate inaction.”

Paris CNN —Some 28.5% – nearly one third – of gas stations in mainland France are out of stock of at least one fuel, French Energy Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told journalists Friday. A source from the office of the French prime minister on Friday blamed the long lines and exhausted stocks at French gas stations this week on panic buying, rather than just supply problems. This is despite gas companies providing between a 30% and 50% increase in supply of gas to pumps this week, compared to a normal week, the source said. Earlier this week, the French government ordered staff at an ExxonMobil refinery in Normandy to return to work, a highly unusual step. Meanwhile, on Friday, French energy giant TotalEnergies struck a deal with two French trade unions, CFE-CGC and the CFDT, to increase salaries for 2023.

☆ France tries to break oil refinery strike as drivers line up for gas
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Under French law, workers who ignore such an order could face a €10,000 ($9,700) fine or six months imprisonment. The rarely used measure can be imposed by the government when the country’s national security is at risk because of strike action. Striking workers have blockaded ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies (TOT) refineries for several weeks, disrupting supply to thousands of gas stations. Nearly one in three gas stations reported difficulties with supplies on Monday, according to France’s energy minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher. CNN affiliate BFMTV reported miles-long tailbacks at gas stations, with drivers at one site on the edge of Paris queuing for nearly two miles earlier this week.

CNN —An animal sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is facing demands for ransom money, after kidnappers abducted three of its baby chimpanzees. “This is the first time in the world that baby apes were kidnapped for ransom,” Franck Chantereau, founder of the sanctuary where the kidnap took place, told CNN on Friday. But they didn’t come so the kidnappers took these three babies hostage and demanded a large amount of ransom from us,” Chantereau said. “Obviously, it’s impossible for us to pay the ransom,” Chantereau said. But Chantereau said the kidnapping won’t shake his determination to save baby chimps from the clutches of smugglers.

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