A third wave of strikes in France continues to put pressure on Macron

Public transport, schools and oil refineries were disrupted in France on Tuesday as trade unions led a third wave of a nationwide strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to extend the working years for French people before retiring.

Strike movements in many sectors and street protests on Tuesday come hours after efforts began to pass the pension reform law through parliament, in a test of Macron’s ability to enact change without a working majority in the National Assembly.

The government says working time must be increased by two years, to put the retirement age for most people at 64, in order to maintain budgets for one of the most generous pension systems among industrialized nations.

“Retirement should be a second life, not a waiting room for death,” pensioner Bernard Chevalier said at a protest in Nice on the French Riviera.

Railway services have been cancelled, schools have been disrupted, oil product shipments from refineries have stopped, and workers have withdrawn in many sectors. The unions once again called on citizens to take to the streets in large numbers.

Opinion polls show that the French spend the largest number of years after retirement among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, an advantage that the vast majority of them refuse to give up.

Labor Minister Olivier Dussopp dismissed opposition accusations that the government denied the scale of the country’s street protests last month and said change was necessary.

“The pension system is incurring losses, and if we care about the system, we have to maintain it,” the minister told RMC radio.

The government says the reform will save more than 17 billion euros ($18 billion) annually by 2030.

There are more than 20,000 amendments before parliament, but because the reform is included in an annual social security bill, the government may send it to the Senate after only two weeks.