Paris, France (AHN) – In a protest against recently approved pension reform plans, French unions on Tuesday came down to the streets to launch the latest round of strikes, threatening an open-end action against the government to force it to agree to their demands.

This was the fourth biggest action against the government reforms in the last 30 days. Civil servants, transport workers and teachers halted their work to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s reform drive.

Despite a decline in Sarkozy’s popularity as unions pulled their support, lawmakers approved on Monday a proposal to increase the retirement age for a full state pension from age 65 to age 67.

Meanwhile, railways and aviation officers have warned against serious travel disruptions in coming weeks as half of Paris Orly airport’s flights and one in three at Charles de Gaulle and Paris Beauvais are already cancelled.

Only one in three TGV high-speed trains are on schedule, while all trains apart from the Paris-Rome route are cancelled.

Services between Paris and London are likely to operate normally. Metro and bus services are so far unaffected. Despite all these strikes, the government remained adamant about its policies.

Talking to senators, Labor Minister Eric Woerth said, “We’re not here to do what’s easy, we don’t always have the people’s approval.” He added, “It’s difficult to tell the French that they have to work more, up to 67 years, but it has to be done.”

Unions on Tuesday threatened to continue the strikes and called another day of demonstration on Saturday.

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