French President Macron pushes pension reform as protests escalate
India TodayFrench President Emmanuel Macron drew an angry response from unions and opposition parties on Wednesday when he said he would press on with plans to raise the pension age, rejecting calls for a U-turn in response to growing public anger. Unions said a ninth nationwide day of protests and strikes on Thursday would draw huge crowds against what they described as Macron's "scorn" and "lies." "Lies!," the moderate, reform-minded Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT, France's largest union, tweeted, accusing Macron of "rewriting history" after he said unions had not offered an alternative to his pension bill. "He fanned the flames," Laurent Delaporte, a CGT union leader in the port of Le Havre said of Macron's interview. "Tomorrow we will be on the streets again to demonstrate against the pension reform and demand its withdrawal," said one of them, CFDT union member Sophie Trastour.