France gripped by fresh round of strikes

For the second time in a month, workers are protesting government plans to raise the retirement age to 62.

Only half of the subways in Paris are operating normally and mass cancellations are being predicted at airports across the country today, as over 1 million workers strike against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s hugely unpopular austerity measures. Half the country’s inter-city trains will also be cancelled. Sarkozy says that because of the struggling economy and the longer life expectancy of the baby boomer generation, the retirement age must be raised from 60 to 62, otherwise the national pension system will go bankrupt. Governments across Europe are enacting similar austerity measures in the wake of Greece’s financial crisis. France has one of the lowest retirement ages in Europe: Germany’s is 67.