Despite protests, France pushes pension bill

Students’ protest role goes beyond pensions. A10

With French drivers short of gasoline, ports blocked, and intermittent clashes between demonstrators and police, President Nicolas Sarkozy employed an article in the Constitution that will allow the government to prevent individual votes on the remaining 230 or so amendments to the bill.

There have been about 1,000 amendments, most of them part of an effort by the Socialist Party and other opposition parties to slow down the passage of the bill while the strikes continue. Under the streamlined procedure, a final vote on the bill is expected by the middle of next week.

The bill calls for gradual increases in the age for a minimum pension to 62 from 60 and for a full pension to 67 from 65. It provides some exceptions for workers in dangerous occupations, for those who began work at an early age, and for mothers who take breaks to raise their children.

The rule invoked by Sarkozy will force the Senate to cast a single vote on the bill in a text drafted by the government, accepting only the amendments the government chooses. Debate can continue on the remaining amendments, but senators will not be able to vote on each one.

The unions called for new days of national protest next Thursday and on Nov. 6.

The Socialists’ leader, Martine Aubry, criticized the government’s move in Parliament as an abuse of power imposing “an unjust reform’’ without sufficient debate by the elected representatives of the French people.

“With Mr. Sarkozy, it’s the permanent ‘coup de force,’ ’’ she said, echoing an anti-De Gaulle pamphlet in 1964 by Francois Mitterrand called “Le coup d’etat permanent.’’

But Labor Minister Eric Woerth said that with the debate in its third week, “It’s time for the Senate to act.’’ Asked about Aubry’s charge, he said: “You say it’s a coup de force,’’ but added: “It’s only the application of the Constitution.’’

Earlier yesterday, Sarkozy warned that “troublemakers’’ using violence in the protests against his proposed pension changes would be pursued and punished “with no weakness’’ on the part of the authorities. He spoke at a meeting with rural officials southwest of Paris as a 10th day of strikes at refineries and blockades of fuel depots and ports left motorists struggling to find fuel.

While authorities said yesterday that there had been a “slow improvement’’ in fuel supplies, with only 14 of more than 200 depots still blockaded, service station operators said that about half of the country’s 13,000 gas stations were experiencing supply problems.

Referring to several days of clashes between the police and protesters in Lyon, which continued yesterday, Sarkozy said the “troublemakers will not have the last word in a democracy, a republic.’’

“It is not acceptable,’’ he said. “They will be stopped, tracked down, and punished, in Lyon and anywhere else, with no weakness.

“Because in our democracy, there are many ways to express yourself. But violence is the most cowardly, the most gratuitous, and that is not acceptable.’’

Sarkozy has tried to switch the topic from pensions to law and order. But he is also counting on a school vacation week to take some of the steam out of the protests, which have been joined by thousands of high school students.

The education authorities said 312 of France’s 4,300 high schools were closed or disrupted yesterday because of protests by students. The police said about 4,000 students marched, while student organizers put the figure at more than 15,000.

Earlier yesterday, strikers blocked the access road to the airport in the southern port of Marseille for several hours and held up traffic near the cities of Rouen, Toulon, Le Havre, and elsewhere, news reports said.