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The Latest Breaking News from CFDT

French restaurants face hiring crisis with 120,000 empty posts

French restaurants are struggling to hire staff, and employees often only stay for a few months. According to unions, the sector’s declining appeal is largely due to low wages and difficult working conditions.

Radio France Internationale

Louvre partially reopens despite staff vote to carry on strike

The Louvre partially reopened on Wednesday despite staff voting unanimously to extend a strike over pay and working conditions, union representatives said.

Radio France Internationale

Louvre closed as staff strike over working conditions, weeks after €88m jewel heist

Labour leaders said the strike vote was unanimous and it was not immediately clear whether the work stoppage will last longer than one day.

Euronews

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Louvre faces standstill as staff weigh move after jewel heist and shutdown

The crunch vote comes as the museum struggles with the aftermath of a daylight jewel heist

The Independent UK

Unions tense as French PM rejects return to retirement age of 62

French trade unions and opposition parties involved in negotiating France’s controversial pension reform have asked for "clarification" from Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, who on Sunday said that returning to a retirement age of 62, down from 64, was impossible.

Radio France Internationale

Who is Marylise Léon, the new boss of France's largest trade union?

France’s two main trade unions are now led by women after Marylise Léon on Wednesday took the helm of the reformist French Democratic Confederation of Labour, the CFDT – France’s largest union. Her promotion comes three months after Sophie Binet was elected general secretary of the hardline CGT.

Radio France Internationale

France hopes to get people back into work with 'new' jobseeker agency

The French government is due to present its "full employment" bill to the Council of Ministers this Wednesday in legislation that will create France Travail – the successor to Pôle Emploi, the national jobseeker service.

Radio France Internationale

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French pension reform protests falter despite anger

Around 300,000 people took part in protests in Paris on Tuesday according to the CGT union, the lowest turnout since protests against the government's unpopular pension reform started at the beginning of the year.

Radio France Internationale

Pension reform defiance brings new blood to French trade unions

France's unions may have failed to derail President Emmanuel Macron's push to raise the retirement age, but they are reaping big gains in new members thanks to the months-long battle.

Reuters

The CFDT and the French pension reform

This week on The Sound Kitchen you’ll hear the answer to the question about the CFDT trade union and Macron’s pension reform. You’ll meet Paul Myers – who is our new “Listeners Corner” host - and get happy with Ollia Horton’s “Happy Moment”. All that, and the new quiz question,…

Radio France Internationale

Why French trade unions wield political clout despite low membership

Trade union membership in France has been declining since the 1980s and is now one of the lowest in western Europe. And yet unions can still mobilise widespread strikes and demos, as the recent pension reform protests proved. What's behind this French paradox?

Radio France Internationale

Macron faces May Day protests over divisive French pensions law

France's President Emmanuel Macron faces more nationwide protests on Monday as he seeks to steer the country on from a divisive pension law that has sparked anger, pan-bashing and social unrest.

Radio France Internationale

Macron Faces Labor Day Protests over Divisive Pension Law

France's President Emmanuel Macron faces more nationwide protests on Monday as he seeks to steer the country on from a divisive pension law that has sparked anger, pan-bashing and social unrest. Last month he signed a law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, despite months of strikes…

Asharq Al-Awsat

Head of France's top union Berger to step down in June

Union leader Laurent Berger, who emerged as the leading voice of the fight against President Emmanuel Macron's pension changes, will step down in June after more than a decade at the helm of one of France's most powerful unions.

Reuters

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France 24

Macron’s action plan ‘rings hollow’ as critics take to the streets banging pots and pans

President Emmanuel Macron has given himself “a hundred days” to mend his broken rapport with the French, aiming for a rebound after a gruelling 100-day pension battle that has roiled the nation, infuriated millions, and deepened a crisis in French democracy.

Radio France Internationale

French union leaders outraged as Macron signs pension reform into law

French President Emmanuel Macron signed his controversial pension reform into law in the early hours of Saturday morning, prompting angry reactions from union leaders and opposition MPs. They are calling for a 'tidal wave' of protests and strikes on 1 May.

Reuters

Pension protesters target Paris bistro favoured by Macron

Clashes erupted in Paris next to a Left Bank brasserie favoured by French President Emmanuel Macron as protesters torched garbage cans and smashed two banks during the eleventh day of nationwide demonstrations against pension reform.

Radio France Internationale

French unions rally protesters after pension reform talks end in failure

Crunch talks between trade unions and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on France’s pensions crisis ended in failure after less than an hour on Wednesday morning – with union bosses vowing to press ahead with strikes and protests against government plans to raise the retirement age to 64.

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The Conversation

Macron's hard line against pension protests upends France's tradition of social dialogue

In France these days, there is little common ground between the Élysée Palace and civil society. Despite President Emmanuel Macron’s occasional rhetoric to the contrary, power appears to be exercised from the top down, with violence erupting and spreading, overshadowing meaning and content.

Radio France Internationale

Protests continue as French government rejects talks proposal on pension reform

The French government rejected demands Tuesday for a "pause" in pension reform plans to allow for a mediation period. This as clashes with law enforcement, skirmishes, and other acts of vandalism marred demonstrations against pension reform in several cities, including Paris.

France 24

A look back at when French protesters defeated government reform plans

Anger at President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform shows no sign of abating, with protests, strikes and unrest set to continue and both sides digging in their heels. To shed some light on the current stand-off, FRANCE 24 looks back at the last times the unions successfully forced the government to…

Radio France Internationale

French union leader says withdrawal of pension reform is only path to peace

Laurent Berger, the leader of the CFDT trade union group, has called on the government to make a major gesture on pension reform, saying he will not accept any move towards conciliation with Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne until the contested legislation is withdrawn.

France 24

Use of force signals ‘crisis of authority’ as France’s pension battle turns to unrest

Fury at President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to bypass parliament on pension reform has sparked days of unrest across the country, reviving scrutiny of police’s heavy-handed tactics and leaving French cities shrouded in tear gas and smoke – with no end in sight to an increasingly bitter standoff.

Reuters

Moderate French union chief points to possible exit from pension crisis

To have a chance of cooling a red-hot dispute over plans to raise the retirement age, French President Emmanuel Macron can ill afford to ignore Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union.

Radio France Internationale

French lawmakers seek to bring down government as pension row rages on

Two French opposition groups, a broad centre-left coalition and the far-right National Rally, have separately filed motions of censure against the government of Elisabeth Borne. The two texts call for the French equivalent of a no confidence vote. Should either motion succeed, the government will be overthrown.

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