French trade unions stage the 10th nationwide anti-reform protests amid signs of weakening as the National Assembly began debating a draft bill to overhaul the current pension regimes.
Thursday’s turnout on the streets of Paris and other cities was smaller than the previous protest earlier this month.
According to the Interior Ministry, at least 92,000 people demonstrated countrywide, including 7,800 in Paris.
Earlier in the month, there were 121,000 protesters out on the streets, 15,000 of which were in Paris.
The number of protesters has dwindled over the past weeks. When the protests first erupted on December 5, 2019, the nationwide rallies drew 1.5 million participants, according to the unions.
Last month, thousands of labor staged fresh nation-wide protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to overhaul pension reform in France that lead to traffic disruptions and road closures.
Strikes at national railway SNCF and Paris metro RATP entered their 43rd day making it the country’s longest transport strike since 1968.
The government has also offered a concession to temporally remove the most contested measure of “pivotal age” which encourages workers to extend their careers by two years to 64 to have a full pension.
Last year, in November, tens of thousands of people took to streets of Paris and other French cities to protest against domestic violence, after more than 130 women are believed to have been killed by their partner or ex-partner in France this year.
The march, which covered the main avenues in Paris, also had the support of most national unions and leftist parties, with famous faces, such as actresses Léa Drucker and Julie Gayet, and Vincent Trintignant the brother of actress Marie Trintignant who was beaten to death by her partner in 2003.
The crisis forced President Emmanuel Macron to make policy concessions and delay the next wave of reforms, including overhauling the pension and unemployment systems.
The yellow vest protests, named for the high-visibility jackets worn by demonstrators, erupted in November 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living. The demonstrations spiralled into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron and his economic reforms.