A union source told AFP that 36.5 per cent of staff at railway operator SNCF had stopped work, a figure down from 46.3 per cent on January 19.
Around a quarter of all nursery and primary school teachers were on strike, according to the education ministry. In middle and high schools, more than half of teachers had stopped work, a teachers’ union said.
France’s oil industry was mostly paralysed, with the CGT union at energy giant TotalEnergies reporting between 75 and 100 per cent of workers on strike.
Almost two out of 10 civil servants were striking by midday, the authorities said, down from 28 per cent on January 19.
“GET YOUNG PEOPLE INVOLVED”
High school and university students also joined the movement, with a few dozen students at the prestigious Sciences-Po university occupying its main building overnight.
“It’s important to get young people involved in the pensions debate,” student Jean-Baptiste Bonnet said.
Even a prison, in the southwestern city of Nimes, was blocked by protesting staff, a union source said.
Sixty-one per cent of French people support the protest movement, a poll by the OpinionWay survey group showed on Monday – a rise of 3 percentage points from Jan 12.
