- Title: Transport strike hassles becoming unbearable, commuters say
- Date: 17th December 2019
- Summary: VARIOUS OF FRENCH NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES WITH HEADLINES ON STRIKE AND PENSION REFORM
- Embargoed: 31st December 2019 10:20
- Keywords: Christmas break France strike Paris commuters pension reform protest transport strike unions
- Location: PARIS, FRANCE
- City: PARIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Lawmaking,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA002BAD6VYF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Commuters packed into crowded metro stations and crammed trains on Tuesday (December 17) as a nationwide strike against the government's pension reform reached its thirteenth day.
With a nationwide movement of rolling strikes and protests beginning to tail off in its second week, unions are hoping to regain momentum by bringing hundreds of thousands of demonstrators back out onto the street on Tuesday.
Former investment banker Macron has said he wants to streamline the Byzantine state pension system with its tangle of special privileges, and use incentives to encourage people to work until 64, instead of the current average retirement age of 62.
Eight of Paris' 14 metro lines are closed and the rest have a limited service, apart from two lines that run automated trains, with suburban commuter trains also heavily disrupted. Roads were thick on Tuesday morning with pedestrians, bicycles and electric scooters as people tried to get to work.
The state railway operator, SNCF, urged travellers not to show up at stations hoping to travel, with 80 percent of trains out of action in the region around Paris. At some stations in the past two weeks, police and security guards had to stop commuters trying to fight their way onto overcrowded trains.
Morning traffic queues in the Paris area totalled 300 km, though congestion subsided to normal by the end of the morning rush, with many workers having set off early or stayed home.
The unions and Macron are each hoping to push the other to back down before Christmas, with the prospect that continuing strikes over the holiday would alienate an increasingly frustrated public.
(Production: Martin Esposito, Manuel Ausloos, Ardee Napolitano) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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