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The unions have claimed the strikes on Tuesday to be a huge success, with many thousand protesters taking to the streets of Rouen and throughout Normandy, and have called for another day of protest next week.

 Across France up to 2.7 million people took part in the one day strike, but the figures vary widely between the police and trade union claims, with the police estimate being just 1.1 million.  What ever the actual figure, it caused serious disruption and the government is going to have to think of a way of calming the situation down.

The aim of the strikes is to force the government to rethink its controversial pension reforms which plan to raise the pension age from sixty to sixty-two.  To keep the pressure up, the union is talking about another one-day strike .The CGT union has released a statement announcing that strikes will take place on Thursday 23 September. 

The government has said that it remains firm on its core proposal of increasing the retirement age, so it looks set for a long battle between government and unions. In the current financial and budgetary crisis, it is hard to see how the government can compromise.

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