Drivers queue for petrol on the ring road in Nantes. Photograph: Frank Perry/AFP/Getty Images
Strikes gathering pace against Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms appeared to be pushing France closer to crisis today as fuel shortages were felt across the country and violence erupted on the sidelines of protests by children.
On a sixth day of the national demonstrations, Sarkozy was forced to appeal for calm and "responsibility" after cars were burned, shop windows smashed and at least two photojournalists assaulted in Nanterre, west of Paris, and Lyon. Authorities said they believed those responsible for the incidents were not genuine protesters but "thugs" who had come to disrupt the proceedings.
While the violence was kept on a limited scale, the president could do little to stop the oil refinery strike from biting hard in large parts of the country. Jean-Louis Borloo, the ecology minister, said today that just under 4,000 petrol stations, of a total of 12,500, were "awaiting supplies" – without saying all these were suffering actual shortages.
On the outskirts of Paris and in parts of Normandy and the north-west, long queues formed as motorists waited for deliveries. The manager of one petrol station in the centre of the capital, who did not want to be named, said there had been no diesel delivered since Monday morning. "If this carries on we'll see things kick off," he said.
Nicolas Paulissen, deputy head of the FNTR haulage union, said tomorrow would see fuel supplies for freight vehicles become a big problem. "Without trucks it's impossible to supply factories and shops and the economy becomes paralysed," he told Reuters.
Of all the sectors that have been disrupted by the unions' strategy of "soft" rolling strikes, it is the action in the fuel sector that has most rattled the government. Despite repeatedly assuring France that chronic shortages are out of the question, ministers have formed a crisis centre to deal with the situation.
Speaking from an international summit in Deauville, Sarkozy said an emergency meeting would be held to "unblock a certain number of situations". Shortages, he added, "cannot exist in a democracy".
"There are people who want to work, the immense majority, and they cannot be deprived of gasoline," he said.
Sarkozy insists he has no intention of rowing back on his pension reforms, which include raising the symbolic and much-fought-for basic age of retirement from 60 to 62.
He is facing what is arguably his toughest week in power as he waits for a vote in the senate which, although not quite the end of the reform's passage into law, will close the main chapter of parliamentary debate.
But those marching in Paris today refused to let the prospect of a vote, already postponed once last week and now due to take place at the end of this week, get them down. For them, the reform is unjust, hitting hardest women, workers in hazardous jobs and those who start work at a young age – and worth fighting against tooth and nail.
"The vote is of no importance," said Didier Caron, a 51-year-old Renault employee. "It's the street. If the street works well, it could still win."
As the familiar chants rang out and students and children rubbed shoulders with pensioners and postmen, the manifestation drew 3.5 million people on to the streets, according to the unions, and 1.1 million, according to the interior ministry. Some shouted their calls for an intensified grève générale (general strike). Others took a quieter approach. One man's sticker read: "rêve générale" – general dream.
"I am here to show my discontentment with this government's politics in general," said one hospital worker, Armelle, who like many protesters was expressing her rage with the Sarkozy agenda as a whole, rather than just the pension reform. "This is my fifth time. I am mobilising for myself and for all French people. I feel as though our public services, which are so important to us in France, are disappearing."
For most, however, the issue of the day was the now infamous réforme des retraites, the law which the embattled rightwing president is said to regard as his single most important piece of legislation in the latter half of his presidency. A reform which the government and many economists say is long overdue, it aims to cancel a deepening pensions shortfall and, in political terms, display Sarkozy's reformist credentials to an electorate weary of his failure to deliver on lofty promises.
Reiterating his commitment to the law, which would also raise the age of full pension entitlement from 65 to 67, the president said that carrying out the controversial changes to secure future generations' pensions was his duty.
But it is those future generations of pensioners that Sarkozy is having the most trouble convincing. Today, days after they entered the fray for the first time, children ramped up their action even further, leaving 379 secondary schools blocked or disrupted to varying degrees – a record since the beginning of the protests.
Véro Du Cheyron, 51, social worker with the mentally disabled: "I am protesting today because this reform is a symbol of a society which always favours the rich and hurts the little people. When the banks go under, the government saves them. But it's not saving us. So I'm fighting for me and my children. They say that people are living longer so they have to work longer, but they don't say anything about the health problems that come by doing that. Also, as a woman, the reform will hurt me as we're usually the ones who have to stop work at certain times. I had always planned on retiring at 60, but it looks like that won't be possible any more."
Laura Tanniou, 22, student: "We may be only students now but we still want to make the most of our retirement! The government is talking about demographics but a lot of what they're saying is not true. The reality is that we're getting older but also getting to an age where you shouldn't be working. At 67 you're more likely to be unemployed than in work. You do hear people saying the French should just face up to it, but they don't understand: we are fighting to hold on to the benefits our grandparents won for us. I suppose that if there has to be reform, the better-off should contribute more than the less well-off."
Nicolas Sene, 27, restaurant manager: "I think the French should get up and, instead of whining, just work a bit harder. I started at 19 and have never stopped. Yesterday, I worked a 13-hour day. I think that as time goes on, we are finding new ways to enable the body to resist old age, and we're therefore capable of working a bit longer. There are certain industries, mind you, which are tough – mining, or even the restaurant business. But for people who just sit in offices all day I think they could be made to do a little bit more time. As for me, I'd like to think that as a manager I could carry on as long as I have the lucidity and the strength."
Benjamin Debry, 28, florist: "It'd be difficult for me to join the strike today, but I do support those who have. As for the protests, we French are the specialists in this. We are the country of justice and freedom and so we, the people, have a right to shout out when something's not right. It's important. We all care about our pensions and obviously we'd like to not be totally worn out by the time they arrive. I agree that some people are going to have to work longer. But it should be done on a case-by-case basis. Some people are in very hard jobs. I don't think it would hurt others to do an extra two years."
Frédéric Delouche, 40, postman: "My work is very hard on a physical level. I've been doing it for 10 years now and after a while various parts of your body begin to hurt – your back, your wrists, your joints. For people like me in arduous jobs, what this reform is suggesting is just not doable. I certainly can't see myself still coping with it at the age of 67, and to me it is completely unfair that I should be made to do so. What I want is to be able to retire at 60 – or, OK, at 62 – but on a full pension. And to get rid of [Nicolas] Sarkozy. He shouldn't be president. He just doesn't know how to negotiate."
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