French government offers unions to meet next week to ease tensions

MADRID, 29 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Government of France has proposed to the unions to set a meeting for next week, in which the two parties will foreseeably present their respective positions in relation to the controversial pension reform.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne's office has sent the main unions an invitation outlining possible appointments on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. According to sources close to the leader, "no agenda has been set," reports the BFMTV channel.

The leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger, has made it clear that they will take their recurring complaints about the new law under their belt. "Can you imagine that at a time of very strong protest against the pension reform, the representatives of the trade union organizations were going to talk about something else with the Prime Minister?", He has raised in an interview with Franceinfo.

The unions will seek a "way out" of the crisis, although the positions of the parties seem irreconcilable today. The Government has ruled out rewriting the text, while the workers' representatives request at least the suspension of the measures they consider most harmful, including the delay of 62 to 64 days of the retirement age.

The French Executive has also ruled out a proposal from the unions to find a mediator and, in the street, the protests do not stop. On Tuesday, in the tenth day of strikes called since January, thousands of people took to the streets again - 450,000, according to unions, or 93,000, according to the Government.