Aanhoudende stakingen leiden tot brandstoftekorten in Frankrijk (en)
EUOBSERVER i / BRUSSELS - Official images of French President Nicolas Sarkozy i serenely strolling along a boardwalk with German Chancellor Angela Merkel i in the French resort-town of Deauville on Monday evening (18 October) stand in contrast to social tensions in the rest of the country.
As the two leaders called for an EU i treaty change to prevent future government debt crises threatening the eurozone, widespread protests continued across France in opposition to Mr Sarkozy's pension reform plans that propose raising the retirement age from 60 to 62.
Violent confrontations between youths and riot police took place in several cities, with ongoing rolling strikes restricting supplies from all but one of the country's 12 oil refineries. Panic-buying has led to a 50 percent jump in petrol sales in recent days.
Unions plan to hold another day of nationwide strikes on Tuesday, expected to ground many international flights, as tensions mount ahead of Thursday's senate vote on the reform package.
With some 1,500 French petrol stations already out of fuel, the industry has started to tap its 30-day emergency stores. The government also has 98 days of oil stocks in a strategic reserve.
Speaking after security talks in Deauville with Ms Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Sarkozy said he would not back away from the "essential" reforms at the heart of the controversy.
Under pressure from Brussels and international markets to scale back ballooning deficit and debt levels, governments across Europe have unleashed wide-ranging austerity measures this year.
The European Commission has insisted that structural economic adjustments such as pension and labour market reforms are also essential measures to restore growth to Europe's ailing economy.
Further cuts in Greece and Ireland
EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn on Monday said he was confident that Ireland, Greece and Portugal would be able to reduce their budget deficits as planned in 2011.
But revised data for Greece is likely to increase the country's public deficits as recorded in recent years, "which may require some additional measures ... in order to stick to the fiscal target" for 2011, said Mr Rehn.
New, upwardly-revised figures for Greek deficit and debt levels over each of the past four years are due to be made public this Friday as a result of the stronger auditing powers recently handed to the EU's statistics agency, Eurostat.
In Ireland, cross-party talks also suggest that further spending cuts and tax hikes will be needed next year in order to meet the deficit reduction target agreed with Brussels.
Dublin recently indicated that the cost of supporting its banks could total as much as €50 billion, boosting its deficit to a staggering 32 percent of GDP in 2010. The coalition is expected to publish a plan in the coming weeks for reducing its deficit to below three percent of GDP by 2014.