The BBC’s Christian Fraser reports from the scene of a protest march in Paris
More than one million people have taken to the streets of France in a sixth national day of action against planned pension reforms, officials say.
Strikes have hit transport and education, 4,000 petrol stations have run dry and police have clashed with protesters in several cities.
Shops were looted in Lyon and cars were set on fire in a Paris suburb.
President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed for calm but insisted he would press ahead with plans to raise the retirement age.
He told a news conference in Deauville that it was his duty to focus on the “troublemakers” and ensure that public order was guaranteed.
“The biggest oversight would be to not do my job and to not ensure the financing of retirement pensions for today and tomorrow,” he added.
Sixth strike
Marchers set off during the afternoon from Place d’Italie in the south of Paris on the sixth national strike day since the start of September, one of 200 demonstrations across France.
The interior ministry said that 1.1 million demonstrators had taken to the streets across the country although the CGT union said the number was 3.5 million.
The day of action was being seen as a last attempt to mobilise protesters before the Senate’s final vote on the government’s pension reforms.
The street protests on Tuesday were comparable with the previous week’s national day of action, although police and unions gave widely differing numbers.
In Paris, the unions estimated that 330,000 demonstrators had taken to the streets but police put the number at 60,000.
Many of the people here carrying the flags of the various unions will tell you this is not just about retirement age, it’s not just about plans to change the pension system in this country.
It is also, they say, about protecting the French way of life.
They believe their government is not doing enough to address the needs of the poor in this country.
It is doing little as they see it to address what they call a growing gap between the rich and the poor in France.
While some of them do admit that it may not be possible to stop the government moving forwards with its plans to increase the retirement age, they do believe that they are part of a growing movement of discontented and angry people in France who will, in the end, win out.
In the southern port city of Marseille, unions gave an estimate of 240,000 protesters while police said the figure was 23,000.
Fuel supplies
Although the planned increase in the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the full state pension age from 65 to 67 is widely unpopular, the scale of disruption is beginning to affect large parts of society.
A blockade of France’s 12 oil refineries is hitting fuel supplies hard.
Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told MPs that just under 4,000 petrol stations out of a total of 13,000 were awaiting supplies.
A third of the country’s departments (local authorities) were said to be experiencing shortages.
In Normandy in northern France, 12 petrol stations were taken over by the authorities for use by emergency services.
Public transport was also hit, with half the scheduled flights in and out of Orly airport in Paris cancelled because of a one-day walk-out by air traffic controllers.
One in three flights at other airports was affected. Most of the cancellations involved domestic and European services.
Trains on the Paris Metro were heavily crowded as only about half the services were running and national rail operator SNCF said as many as three-quarters of its fast regional trains had been cancelled.
School blockades
Education was also affected: the education ministry said 379 secondary schools were either blockaded by pupils or had suffered some disruption, the highest number since the protests began at the start of September.
In some areas, schools became a focus for violence. Outside a secondary school in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, youths threw stones at police who responded with tear gas.
For the second day running, cars were overturned and set alight in Lyon. There were also disturbances in Mulhouse and Montbeliard in eastern France.
Presidential popularity
Despite the widespread disruption, the strikers continue to attract popular support with one opinion poll suggesting that 71% of those surveyed back the industrial action.
However, people using public transport in the northern city of Lille appeared less happy.
Source: IEA
Insurance worker Frederic Deraed said the French should no longer think it was still acceptable to stop working at 60.
Nadine Gestas agreed the protests were ultimately futile: “We can’t pay the pensions and we can’t avoid increasing the age of retirement. Every country in Europe is raising the age of retirement,” she told the BBC.
But Olivier Sekai, of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), said he saw support increasing for the protests.
“The government is acting as if we didn’t have a rich country, as if we didn’t have the money. The thing is we do have the money,” he told the BBC.
President Sarkozy’s poll ratings appear to have dropped even further as he tries to tackle the wave of protests.
One poll for BVA conducted on 15 and 16 October suggested his approval rating was down to 30%, the lowest for three years.
The number of French with either a negative or very negative opinion of their president rose five points from September to 69%.
President Sarkozy’s ratings decline Send your pictures and videos to [email protected] or text them to 61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
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