Tens of thousands of protesters marched through French cities on Thursday, heeding the rallying cry of trade unions demanding action against plans for sharp spending cuts in next year's budget, Reuters reports.
Trade unions are eager to keep the pressure on President Emmanuel Macron and his new prime minister, Sebastien Lecornu, who is racing against the parliamentary timetable to break an impasse in budget negotiations with political rivals.
Macron and his prime minister, who is still working to form a cabinet, need to bring public finances under control in the euro zone's second-largest economy, with European Union peers, ratings agencies and financial markets watching its next moves.
But union leaders, including those from France's largest union, the CFDT, and the hardline CGT, are clamouring for more spending on public services, a reversal of an increase to the retirement age and higher taxes on the wealthy.
"We need to ... end for good all the sacrifices being demanded of workers that were set out in the (last) budget proposal," CGT secretary general Sophie Binet told BFM TV.
Macron's last prime minister, Francois Bayrou, was ousted by parliament over a planned 44-billion-euro budget squeeze. Lecornu has promised a break from those plans.
"The question is what exactly?" CFDT secretary general Marylise Leon told reporters ahead of a protest in Paris.
