It started: Genuine total chaos across the country PHOTO/VIDEO

It started: Genuine total chaos across the country PHOTO/VIDEO

Unions have organized strikes across the country against President Emmanuel Macron's intention to implement pension reform.

There were also reports of students blocking schools, while BFM TV showed footage of workers leaving cars on the side of the road near Amiens in northern France, while others blocked access to an industrial area, Reuters reports.

Opinion polls have shown for weeks that a majority of voters do not support Macron's reform, which among other measures raises the retirement age by two years to 64, but the government has no intention of backing down and says it is essential to preserving the pension system, it said. "I can understand that few people want to work for two more years, but this is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the system," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne told France 5 TV.

Unions said they would step up pressure to try to convince lawmakers not to vote for the reforms, adding that strikes, particularly at oil refineries and on the railways, could be extended for several days.

A representative of the CGT union at the company "Total Energy" told Reuters that the strike at the Gonfreville refinery in Normandy is scheduled to last until Thursday, and that at the Donges refinery in western France it will last until Friday.

The Gonfreville refinery is completely blocked.

The representative of the CGT in the company "Eso" announced that about 50 percent of the employees in the first shift are on strike in the Port Jérôme refinery, while 90 percent are on strike in Foss, and that this affects processing. The branch of the CGT trade union in Lyon announced that 90 percent of the employees at the Kise hydroelectric plant went on strike, the machines were stopped and electricity production was suspended, TV BFM reports.

In the same region, about 80 percent of the employees of the Fezen refinery blocked the operation of the plant. The head of the FO union told RTL radio that he will not give up and that he is confident that "today they will bring more than two million people to the streets".

"We will continue until the reform is withdrawn. New rallies are planned across France after more than 1.27 million people took part in previous protests on January 31. Let's stop France together," the country's leading unions said in a joint statement.