PARIS, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of French professionals from different fields marched in cities across the country on Monday in the latest protest against President Emmanuel Macron's flagship pension overhaul.
Under the same banner "SOS Retraites" (SOS Pension), lawyers, nurses, doctors, airline pilots, and stewards took to the streets across the country to defend their specific pension regimes.
"It's the first time in the country's history that lawyers, medical professionals and air transport employees gather together to denounce the project to merge their autonomous retirement regimes," the "SOS Retraites" collective told Le Journal de Dimanche newspaper.
In one of his main campaign promises, Macron proposed to merge 42 different pension regimes for different professions into an universal system.
The new single regime would use points so that each euro paid in would give the same retirement benefits no matter what sector pensioners worked in.
"We are all concerned regardless of our income, our specialties and the size of our firms," wrote the Paris Bar on its website, calling on lawyers to oppose a reform which it says would double their contribution and reduce their pension.
Last Friday, the unions of the RATP, which run local trains, buses and the metro in the Paris region, had staged a one-day strike in the capital, spelling chaos for thousands of commuters. They oppose the government's proposal to scrap preferential terms for transport workers, including retirement on full pension at age 52, a decade earlier than for other French workers.
For decades, governments of the left and the right have tried to overhaul France's pension system, but have always abandoned their reform bids in the face of street protests.
The FO and CGT labour unions plan two more social actions in the coming days.
