Strikes cost France hundreds of millions a day, minister says

Strikes cost France

hundreds of millions 

a day, minister says

Strikes in France cost the country 200 to 400 million euros ($280 to $560 million) per day, plus "immaterial" and "moral" damages, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Monday.

French workers staged a series of rolling strikes and demonstrations this month and last month against government plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, among other pension reforms.

Lagarde's estimate covers a period of nearly two weeks, since rolling strikes began on October 12, a finance ministry spokesman told CNN, and takes in the fuel crisis, the deterioration of the country's image, and the impact on foreign investment.

She was speaking with French broadcaster Europe 1.

The French Senate passed the reforms last week despite the demonstrations, and a final vote reconciling its bill with that of the lower house of parliament is expected within days.

Protesters scuffled with police and blockaded oil refineries and terminals for days as tensions flared over the measures that the government says are necessary to save money and shrink the deficit.

"It was our job to do this reform," Labor Minister Eric Woerth said after the Senate vote on Friday. "It's to assure that our children can have the same pension benefits that we do."

Finance Minister Lagarde has said the country cannot continue to pay its debts -- to retirees and others -- by borrowing at current levels. The government's announced goal is to cut the deficit from 8 percent to 6 percent of gross domestic product by next year, an ambitious goal.

Woerth said Thursday that the retirement reform has been the single most debated bill in terms of the number of hours the Senate has spent examining it since the creation of the fifth republic in 1958.

Seven senators and seven members of the National Assembly are meeting early this week to reconcile the differences between the two bills. Each house will then vote for or against the bill proposed by the conference committee.

A final vote on the reform is expected early Tuesday or Wednesday in both the Senate and National Assembly, according to a spokesman in the Senate.

The lower house of parliament passed the pension reform bill in September, by a vote of 329 to 233.

More than a million people have turned out nationwide to protest the proposal.

Six major French unions have called for further nationwide demonstrations on October 28 and November 6, saying that protests so far show the people are ready to dig in for the long haul.

The country has faced fuel shortages because workers went on strike at all 12 of the nation's refineries, and protesters blocked a handful of the country's 219 oil terminals.

French riot police ended the blockade of an oil refinery near Paris early Friday morning as members of the Gendarmerie Nationale instructed strikers to free the facility, a police spokesman said.

Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said Friday that the situation was slowly getting better.

"We're headed for improvement," he said.