But their demands don’t go nearly far enough according to French schoolchildren, whose union, the UNL, has

called
upon its young members to go on a nationwide strike on October 2 and 10. And what are they demanding? They are
demanding no less than the total scrapping of the proposed legislation. All of it.
The movement’s slogan is “Student at 20, unemployed at 25 and still poor at 67? No thanks.”

Not only do they want the law to be scrapped, they have listed a parallel set of demands in the strike manifesto which
include; “That those years spent being educated count as years valid for consideration when calculating retirement
benefits, as well as time spent on student work-training, summer job periods and working in poorly-paid jobs.” The
manifesto does not suggest how the government should go about financing the plans it outlines.

UNI, the university students union, has followed more or less the same line with their pre-strike slogan being “The
eyes of your father, the cheeks of your mother, and the heavy weight of their retirement pay. New reform!”
The slogan which accompanies the wider campaign is “Retirement = Sacrificed Generations.” They will also be on
strike twice in October.

Carrying banners with slogans like “No, no to your bogus reform, yes, yes to revolution,”

Slogans sometimes took on a mocking character, as in a sign that read, “Work less and live better,”
satirizing Sarkozy’s campaign slogan, “Work more, earn more.”

What are the demands and the slogans of the demonstrations and activities?

The “official” demand is that retirement age should be kept at 60, as it is currently. But, day after
day, slogans are more and more turned against the government and capitalism. In fact, pensions
is one aspect, as angriness against government, its racist and oppressive policy, its attacks on
workers rights, low wages and high prices, is very strong. Among actions, the favourite, like in
2003, is still road blockades, on highways, town entrances or industrial zones. The tactic relies
on paralysing the economy, to inflict damages to capitalists.

3M boss hostage

Striking French workers for US manufacturer 3M were holding their boss hostage today at a
plant south of Paris as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country.

A few dozen strikers took turns standing guard outside factory offices where the director of 3M's
French operations, Luc Rousselet, has been holed up since yesterday. The workers did not
threaten any violence and the atmosphere was calm at the factory on the outskirts of Pithiviers.

A few police officers stood outside the facility, while workers inside exchanged jokes and
worries about their future amid heaps of empty plastic coffee cups and boxes of cookies.

"We don't have any other ammunition" other than hostage-taking, said Laurent Joly, who has
worked at the Pithiviers plant for 11 years and is angry that he is being transferred to another
French site.

almost 70 percent of those surveyed support, or sympathize with, the strike.

French opposition leader Martine Aubry proposed a motion of “no confidence” against
Sarkozy, the second no-confidence vote he has faced since coming to power. He survived
comfortably—his party has an absolute majority—but it shows there are strong feelings against
the government among the opposition.

In Marseille, where the strikes are thought to have had the greatest impact on day-to-day life, the
streets and sidewalks are full of garbage, and the port remains blocked.

Sophie Frebillot, 19, a philosophy student said she would continue to protest, citing a previous
government’s bow to student pressure in 2006 to abandon a law on youth unemployment. “That means
that everything a government does, the street can undo,” she said.

many other Frenchmen and women, social benefits such as long vacations, state-subsidized health care
and early retirement are more than just luxuries: They're seen as a birthright — an essential part of the
identity of today's France.

"We want to stop working at 60 because it's something our parents, our grandparents and even
our great-grandparents fought for," says Gilly, 50, a union representative at Saint-Pierre
Cemetery, the largest in this bustling Mediterranean port city.

"And over the years ... you can see that we're losing everything they fought for. And that's
unacceptable."

Gilly, a burly man dressed in red from his baseball cap to his Workers' force union bib, pounds
the huge drum hanging from his neck at a street protest against the retirement reform, keeping
time to the chorus of voices singing "The International," the Communist anthem.

Gilly, with huge drums strapped over his shoulders, led the parade for the Workers' Force union
Monday. His sister, two daughters and a nephew weren't far behind.

"Unionism, it's in the skin," Gilly said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
"It's more than a passion. When something is wrong or things aren't right, they have to be
changed."

Gilly packs up his drum for another day, vowing that he and his family will keep up protests —
"for as long as it takes."

"France is showing some of its old cultural reflexes," said Etienne Schweisguth of the Center for
European Studies at the Foundation for Political Science. "When there is something we aren't
pleased with we must protest."

"This is a family affair because unionism is our big family," said Stephanie, 22, who is among
Marseille's striking garbage collectors. "Our elders fought for retirement at 60."
"We have all the generations represented," she said. "There's me, my little sister, Dad. There we
go. And then there will be our children, too. We will teach them."

Union workers shut down all of France's 12 oil refineries on a fourth day of protests Friday,
intensifying fears of fuel shortages.

One of the most visible signs of the strike was the presence of students throughout the city in the
middle of what should have been their school day. Public school teachers joined the strike and no
classes were held Tuesday.

A noisy, yelling throng of 300 to 400 students got off a southbound Line 4 Metro train at the
Montparnasse station around 12:45 p.m. (6:45 a.m. ET), one of them banging on a drum.

Paris transport workers have already voted to strike again Wednesday, which will affect the Paris
Metro, buses and RER trains.

Rail workers have also said they will stay off the job Wednesday, and air transport workers are
voting Tuesday night on whether to continue industrial action,

Nearly 70 percent of the French public back the unions standing up

Strikers disrupted services at schools, hospitals and the postal service to varying degrees. Nearly
a third of the country's teachers did not go to school, national education officials said.

The fourth such protest against the reform in five weeks opened on 11 October with a near
shutdown of domestic and international night rail traffic. As opposed to previous strikes, which
were limited to one day, many unions raised calls for an unlimited strike this time, to increase
pressure on the government to renegotiate the proposal. Some unions, such as those representing
railway workers, had already voted to continue the strike.

The French education ministry said students from 379 high schools are skipping classes to join
the strikes.

Fanny Cottard didn't go to school Tuesday.Instead, she and 50 high school classmates joined
more than a million protesters on the streets of France, fighting government plans to raise the
retirement age from 60 to 62 and make other changes to the pension system.She's only 16, so
retirement might seem a long way off to her, but that's not how she sees it.

"It's about us too," she told CNN on the streets of Paris. "Our retirement will be in a long time,
but it's still about us. We are supposed to change things and make a difference.

"We are not supposed to wait till we are 40 to start thinking about politics. You are supposed to
care when you're young, because in two years I'm going to have to vote for our next president
and I'm supposed to know about it," she said. She and her classmates are planning to block their
school in the western suburbs of Paris on Wednesday as a further sign of protest.

The two main Paris airports, Orly and Charles de Gaulle, had to cancel flights because air traffic
controllers and other airport workers were among the strikers.

At the Cooper Tire plant in Findlay, Ohio, Jack Hartley, who is 58, works a 12-hour shift
assembling tires: pulling piles of rubber and lining over a drum, cutting the material with a hot
knife, lifting the half-finished tire, which weighs 10 to 20 pounds, and throwing it onto a rack.
Mr. Hartley performs these steps nearly 30 times an hour, or 300 times in a shift. “The pain
started about the time I was 50,” he said. “Dessert with lunch is ibuprofen. Your knees start
going bad, your lower back, your elbows, your shoulders.”

He said he does not think he can last until age 66, when he will be eligible for full Social
Security retirement benefits. At 62 or 65, he said, “that’s it.” Mr. Hartley says he feels like the
forgotten man. Discussion has focused mostly on the older workers who hold relatively
undemanding jobs at desks and computers that can be done at age 69 or beyond. But hard labor
is not a thing of the past for older workers, who are on the whole less educated than younger
ones.

A new analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that one in three workers
over age 58 does a physically demanding job like Mr. Hartley’s — including hammering nails,
bending under sinks, lifting baggage — that can be radically different at age 69 than at age 62.
Still others work under difficult conditions, like exposure to heat or cold, exposure to
contaminants or weather, cramped workplaces or standing for long stretches.

In all, the researchers found that 45 percent of older workers, or 8.5 million, held such difficult
jobs. For janitors, nurses’ aides, plumbers, cashiers, waiters, cooks, carpenters, maintenance
workers and others, raising the retirement age may mean squeezing more out of a declining
body.

“If you try to punish people for retiring earlier” by raising the retirement age, “you’re punishing people
who aren’t choosing it,” Professor Ghilarducci said.

Jim McGuire, 62, a ramp serviceman for United Airlines, who started lifting bags into airplanes
43 years ago. He has had rotator cuff surgery and separated a shoulder on the job.

“From 50 to 60 was a drastic change,” he said. “The aches and pains, the feeling that your back
could go at any second. My hips are worn out. In a seven-day week, I take Advil five nights for
the pain.”

Mr. McGuire said that he did not have a planned retirement date, but that he hoped to make it to
66. Since United’s pension plan was taken over by the government, cutting his benefits in half,
he says Social Security has become a much bigger part of his future plans.
For Bobbie Smith, 69, a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home in Miami, getting older has
just meant using her body more judiciously. Providing direct care to the elderly, Mrs. Smith
belongs to one of the fastest-growing work forces in the country and one of the grayest.

“I learned to arrange work so it won’t be so hard on me,” she said. “I try to encourage patients to
the point that they help themselves.”

She said she planned to continue working, even as she got older than some of her patients.

“What am I going to do if I sit at home, keep cleaning the house?” she said. “I need the money. I
bought me a car, and I want to pay for it. But I would still work.”

The general strike closed as many as 300 high schools with teachers barricading themselves into
some buildings.

Besides Wednesday's actions, striking petroleum workers have closed down 10 of France's 11 oil
refineries. The port of Fos-Lavera, critical to the oil industry, has been shut down for two weeks,
due to strikes there, the report said

Hospital workers, teachers, bus drivers, train drivers, airport personnel, gas and electricity workers, all
are on strike today. The roads into Paris are jammed. And in perhaps the ultimate indignity, French news
radio was replaced by American soft rock. High school and college students also walked out of class.

What is the attitude of people about the strike?

According to polls, 71% of French people support the movement, and 55% agrees it should be
more radical. After all, most people are workers and will also suffer from a higher retirement
age. This means that even if they can’t personally go on strike, because they can’t loose any part
of their low wage, because of boos pressures and so on, they still support the movement.

France's eight leading trade unions Thursday staged their second day of strikes this month to
protest the reforms, which include raising the retirement age from 60 to 62

Demonstrations took place Tuesday at four universities around the country, the Ministry of Education
said. Most universities are on vacation this week.

Fallacy 3: People are living longer, and French workers who object to increasing the
retirement age from age 60-62 are just slackers.

Fact:  The proposed law would increase the age, from 60 to 62, at which workers can retire early
and receive a reduced (lifetime) benefit. It also sets a minimum of 41 years of full time
employment before French workers can retire with a full pension. Which means students who
don’t begin full time work till they complete university and tradesmen required to do an
apprenticeship – who often start full time work in their mid to late twenties – may be working
until 68 or 69 before they qualify for a pension.
Fact:  Working past age 60 may be okay for an office worker who sits at a computer all day. The
reality is that as many as 1/3 of workers age 55 and over (the percent is estimated to be
somewhat higher in France) perform physically demanding jobs, involving lifting, stooping,
kneeling, crouching, extended standing, and close to 50% of them suffer from arthritis. Thirty
percent of people between 55 and60 have chronic pain on job. The New York Times recently
reviewed an important study of the medical problems of workers over 55 who perform manual
labor (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/us/13aging.html?_r=1)

Ironically manual workers typically pay more into social security (starting at age 18, rather than
age 25-30, like their more educated counterparts) than white collar workers.

Union workers shut down all of France's 12 oil refineries on a fourth day of protests Friday,
intensifying fears of fuel shortages.

One cement worker demonstrator in the central town of Angouleme

told Agence France-Presse: "I'm prepared to extend the strike. I
started working at 17 and now I'm 50, and I'm starting to get really
fed up with it."

"The large majority of employees cannot afford to pay for repeated

days of strikes."
Some 56 petrol tankers and 29 cargo ships are stranded outside Fos-
Lavera port.
Three men were sentenced to prison on Monday after police officers clashed with youths in a
Paris suburb for a fourth straight night and residents accused the police of throwing a tear-gas
grenade at a mosque.

In all, 27 people have been arrested since the violence started Thursday night.

Two 25-year-old men and another aged 27, detained Friday during the worst of the rioting in the
northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, received eight-month sentences, including two months'
firm imprisonment for throwing projectiles at police officers.

Five other adults were due to appear before a judge north of Paris, and three teenagers were to
appear before a children's court judge.

In rioting Sunday night in Clichy-sous-Bois, 8 cars and 16 rubbish bins were set afire. Dozens of
other vehicles were incinerated in the preceding rampages.
There were no reports of civilian casualties on Sunday, but six police officers were slightly
wounded.

The suburb was calm during the day Monday.

The unrest was triggered when two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, died by electrocution Thursday
after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer. A friendwho
was with them said the boys thought they were being chased by the police, but the authorities
have denied that was the case.

The clashes have pitted youths - at times several hundred of them - against police officers,
leaving a total of 23 officers wounded.

Clichy-sous-Bois has a substantial immigrant population, a large share of public housing and a
history of social problems.

The landing of a police tear-gas grenade in the local mosque - close by which "100 to 150 youths
were looking for a fight," according to a departmental security spokesman, Jean-Luc Sidot -
threatened to worsen the running conflict.Muslims inside the building accused the police of
firing the grenade.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed that the grenade was of the type used by riot squads,
but he said "that does not mean that it was fired by a police officer.'

Sarkozy promised stepped-up security in restive neighborhoods with riot police to ensure order
and intelligence agents to search for troublemakers.

Residents of troubled neighborhoods will get "the security they have a right to," he vowed
Monday during a meeting with police officers and fire fighters.

Sarkozy says that violence in French suburbs is a daily fact of life.

Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are
torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde.