Yellow vest activists join the wave of protest actions against the government's overhaul of France's national retirement system.
Unions, however, see the plan as a threat to hard-fought workers' rights, and are digging in for what they hope is a protracted strike.
They are also planning new nationwide retirement protests for Tuesday, despite the tear gas and rioting that marred the edges of the Paris march Thursday. Emmanuel Buquet, an unemployed 51-year-old from Rouen, said the mass protests gave a new impetus to the waning movement."It's getting worse and worse. We've obtained nothing since last year, just crumbs. The reforms are getting stronger and stronger."
In a society accustomed to strikes for workers' rights, many people have supported the action, though that sentiment is likely to fade if the transport shutdown continues through next week. "I knew it was going to last ... but I did not expect it to be that chaotic," Ley Basaki, who lives in the Paris suburb of Villemomble and struggles to get to and from work in the capital, said.
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