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The French president, Emmanuel Macron , prepares this Sunday the pension reform that his prime minister, Édouard Philippe , will present in detail on Wednesday under the pressure of a massive strike on the railways and the metropolitan transport that will continue.

The Secretary General of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and leader of the opposition to the reform, Philippe Martinez, states in an interview published by Le Journal du Dimanche that they will continue with the protest "until the withdrawal" of the reform , and that It will not be enough with assignments like the ones that Martinez already dropped on Friday.

The prime minister, who said then that the period of transition to a point pension system could be longer than originally planned, warns in statements to the same Sunday that he is determined to take the reform "to the end . "

Because "if a deep, serious and progressive reform is not done now, tomorrow will come another that will make a brutal , truly brutal".

Philippe Martinez gathers early this afternoon to the ministers involved in the reform, who are then summoned at the Elysium by Macron, who refines his strategy for a week of high tension knowing that this reform is at stake the rest of his mandate.

There will be the high commissioner for pension reform, Jean-Paul Delevoye , and the head of Health and Social Security, Agnès Buzyn , who on Monday close the agreement with trade unions and employers on the unification of the 42 pension schemes current in a system by points in which each euro quoted gives the same rights at the time of retirement.

For the ordinary citizen, after the test of union strength last Thursday in which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets against the reform -800,000 according to the police, 1.5 million according to the CGT- , the stoppages in transport they are the well visible sign of the pulse that has been maintained since then.

This Sunday only circulates, on average, one in six high-speed trains (TGV), 10% of the other long-distance trains , 15% of the outskirts of Paris and 20% of the regional ones .

On international lines, there is no train between France and Spain or between France and Italy and between France and Germany only one round trip between Paris and Stuttgart.

90% of services with Switzerland , half of Eurostar to London and one third of Thalys to Belgium and Holland have also been suppressed.

As for the metropolitan transport of Paris, 14 of the 16 metro lines are closed . The only ones that remain in service are the two automatic ones, 1 and 14. There are hardly any trams in operation, 50% of the buses and the trains to the two airports have limited hours and much less frequently than usual.

The National Railroad Society (SNCF) has asked its users that, as far as possible, they do not go to the stations on Monday because they cannot put practically any train, the situation on the platforms given the influx could be dangerous.

Even the prime minister admits that he has no hope that his appearance on Wednesday will put an end to the strikes - "I don't believe in magic ads" - , especially since on Tuesday the unions have called a new day of demonstrations to demonstrate on the street Support against reform.

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