Protests in France as unions make last-ditch bid to resist higher retirement age

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00:00 unions are holding a make or break strike today in a last ditch attempt to derail President

00:05 Macron's pension reforms. Hundreds of thousands are expected in the streets and those taking

00:11 part insist the fight will go on even though those unpopular reforms have become law.

00:18 Well joining me now is France 24's Caris Garland. She's at the protest here in Paris. Caris,

00:24 just tell us where you are in the city and what the atmosphere is like at the moment.

00:27 We're almost at the final destination point for this protest at Place Titelli. There is

00:36 a festive atmosphere, there's lots of music as you can tell from behind me, the sun is

00:40 shining. I think the mood is mostly hopeful. I think some of these people aren't kidding

00:46 themselves about the slim chances of repealing this pension reform. We're expecting less

00:53 people than the peak of these protest movements. This is the 14th day. In early May we saw

01:01 1.28 million throughout all the streets of France. Today we're expecting less than half

01:06 of that, so 600,000. 40 to 70,000 here in the capital. I can say there are a lot of

01:14 people here and people of all ages, particularly a lot of young people. I did speak to an older

01:22 lady who is 69. She said that she's actually here in the streets mostly for her grandchildren.

01:28 She says those are the people that this pension reform is going to affect. The mood is mostly

01:35 calm on the protest route. We did see a bit of broken glass, no major incidents towards

01:42 this end of the procession. We'll see towards the end and obviously there is a heavy police

01:51 presence today. Carys, what have those protesters been telling you about why they're out in

01:57 the streets even though these reforms are already law? We spoke to various people and

02:06 on one hand some people are really hopeful and really do believe that this pension reform

02:12 will be repealed. Not so much. This protest does come two days before a motion in parliament

02:22 to vote on whether to repeal the main article of this reform which says that the retirement

02:28 age will go from 62 to 64. That's a motion that was put forward by the Lyott Parliamentary

02:35 Group which is quite popular among left-wing MPs as well, but we're not even sure if that's

02:41 actually going to be voted on on Thursday. The Speaker of Parliament will have to decide

02:46 whether there will be even a vote at all. The unions that I spoke to are just hoping

02:50 for that, simply just a vote, because they say of course this pension reform was signed

02:56 into law and pushed through parliament without a vote, so they really feel like their voices

03:00 haven't been heard. For that reason, anger and frustration is actually mounting here.

03:06 I spoke to a few people earlier to what they had to say, let's have a listen.

03:12 There's a lot of anger and we feel it. We don't understand how the government went as

03:18 far as pushing the bill through without a vote. It's really difficult to understand.

03:28 I think the anger is actually growing because people are realising that the bill is a denial

03:33 of democracy and that's pretty serious in a country that prides itself on human rights.

03:39 So there you have it. I mean, they do say, I spoke to somebody from one of the unions

03:47 earlier and he said even if the anger does not continue in the streets, it will continue

03:53 in the workplace and that's where we will feel the frustration the most. There is some

03:58 doubt over the future of this movement. As I said, this is the 14th day of protests since

04:03 January. Whether we will see more is unknown. Even the people here today, they're not too

04:09 sure, especially coming into summer when there will be less people here, they'll be on holiday.

04:15 So I think really people are waiting to see what happens on Thursday as the legal avenues

04:23 to repeal this pension reform diminish. Carys Garland at the Paris protest. Thanks very much.

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