The Latest Breaking News from Sophie Binet

Trade union membership in France has been declining since the 1980s and is now one of the lowest in western Europe. And yet unions can still mobilise widespread strikes and demos, as the recent pension reform protests proved. What's behind this French paradox?

The French government will work out a coherent plan to get France back on its feet in the next 100 days and heal the country after weeks of protests against an unpopular pension reform bill, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised speech on Monday.

France's Constitutional Council will on Friday rule on the legality of President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular pensions overhaul. Police have errected anti-riot barriers and have banned demonstrations around the seat of the council in central Paris until Saturday morning. Two decisions are to announced by the end of the day.

Clashes erupted in Paris next to a Left Bank brasserie favoured by French President Emmanuel Macron as protesters torched garbage cans and smashed two banks during the eleventh day of nationwide demonstrations against pension reform.

Crunch talks between trade unions and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on France’s pensions crisis ended in failure after less than an hour on Wednesday morning – with union bosses vowing to press ahead with strikes and protests against government plans to raise the retirement age to 64.

As protests against pensions reform continue, France's second biggest trade union – the hardline CGT – on Friday elected its first ever woman leader. Sophie Binet, 41, emerged as the surprise pick to replace outgoing secretary general Philippe Martinez following a long night of deliberations.

France's hard-left CGT union elected Sophie Binet as its first woman leader on Friday and she vowed to continue her organisation's fight with the government over pension reform.