The French government will press on with pension reform despite protests and expects parliament will soon approve a bill raising the retirement age, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Friday, according to Reuters. The declaration coincided with the first suggestion of a split in protest ranks as a Paris transport union said that it had decided to back out of strikes called for next Tuesday. Sarkozy's social affairs adviser, Raymond Soubie, said that there would be no more concessions on the key element of the bill -- a two-year rise in the retirement age -- after tweaks to soften the blow for some mothers already near retirement. "What's clear is the government won't budge on the heart of the project," Soubie told RTL radio. The bill, which would raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60 and the age at which people can retire on full pensions to 67 from 65, has been submitted to the Senate after approval in the lower house of parliament. Sarkozy and his centre-right government say the legislation is vital to ease a swelling deficit in the pay-as-you-go pension system, curb rising public debt and safeguard France's coveted AAA credit rating, which lets it borrow at low market rates. Soubie said he believed the Senate could vote on the bill by Oct. 20-23 and a final procedure of joint endorsement by both houses of parliament should not take too much longer. "We're in the final straights in the Senate," he said. All of France's major unions have called street protests and strikes on Oct. 12, triggering more radical calls for open-ended strikes by unions in the public transport and energy sectors. In a small sign of waning commitment, however, the second biggest union at Paris's urban transport network said on Friday it would not call on its members to strike on Oct. 12. "Yet again, it's transport on the frontline and we know full well that this is going through the Senate and that nothing will really be changed," Frederic Sarrassat, an official from the Unsa union, told Reuters. He said transport workers risked being used as "cannon fodder" in a protest that lacked support from key groups such as truckers or employees of large companies.
