国际英语新闻：Further mobilization against new pension law turns "feeble" in France

PARIS, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- A further one-day national action against the new pension law was staged across France on Tuesday, but in a much smaller scale, according to figures from the Interior Ministry.

The national movement was launched as the five major French trade unions promoted. However, two weeks after the bill was signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy into law, the protest has lost loads of momentum.

According to the Interior Ministry's figures collected around the noon, there were about 27,000 people participating in some 50 marches at different scales across the country. The mobilization was "extremely feeble," the ministry said.

In the capital Paris, over 3,000 people took to the streets, according to police, while the number from the trade unions was over 9,000. However, the last national action on Nov. 6 reportedly rallied around 28,000 participants in Paris alone.

During the demonstration in Paris, the head of the biggest labor union CGT, Bernard Thibault, stressed that the adoption of the pension law didn't put an end to "the debate and protests about the retirement."

But some other trade union leaders complained that they have not fully used their power to raise public support.

In the country's education system, only 0.86 percent of teachers in primary and secondary schools took part in the one-day action, according to the French Education Ministry's estimation.

Public transport was hardly affected by Tuesday's protest, as metros, medium and long-route trains had no serious delays during the day.

Bernadette Groison, another union leader, admitted that the Tuesday demonstration was smaller than the previous powerful movements, though it showed the workers' willingness to continue the fight.

Sarkozy promulgated the highly controversial pension reform bill on Nov. 10, shortly after the highest constitutional body ruled it was legal.

With a pension deficit of over 30 billion euros (41.1 billion U. S. dollars), France is trying to narrow down the gap by prolonging retirement age from 60 to 62 and full pension age from 65 to 67.