PARIS, April 13 (Reuters) - French unions have called on workers to leave their jobs and join protest rallies on Thursday, in the 12th day of national protests against a bill that will extend the working life of the French.
Some trains will be cancelled, and strikes are also expected among refinery workers, garbage collectors and teachers, at a time when opinion polls show that a large majority of voters remain opposed to raising the retirement age by two years, up to 64 years.
But union action has lost steam, and recent rallies have drawn fewer people than record crowds earlier this year, which brought millions of protesters onto the streets.
This new wave of protests takes place one day before the expected verdict of the Constitutional Council on the legality of the bill.
If the Council gives the green light, even with some caveats, the government will be able to officially enact the law, and it hopes this will put an end to the protests, which have turned violent at times, and have aroused widespread anger against Macron.
The French president told a news conference on Wednesday that he would organize a meeting with the unions after the council's decision, to start working on other proposals.
"The country must go ahead, work and face the challenges that await us," he said during a state visit to the Netherlands.
In any case, the level of opposition to the political changes could have longer-term repercussions: one of the questions is whether the widespread disillusionment with the policy could boost the far right.
"I am not very optimistic about the decision of the Constitutional Council," the leader of the far-right Marine Le Pen, who opposes the pension bill, told BFM TV. "But what do you want me to do? Burn cars? We'll just tell the French: Vote Rally National."
Macron and his government argue that the law is essential to ensure that France's generous pension system does not go bankrupt.
Unions say this can be done by other means, including taxing the rich more or making deeper changes to the pension system.
The Gonfreville refinery in northern France, run by TotalEnergies, started up again on Tuesday, the company said, the last of its four national refineries to restart after a month-long strike.
However, the CGT union called a strike at all refineries on Thursday as part of the national strike.
(Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Bertrand Boucey; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Aurora Ellis, Editing in Spanish by José Muñoz)
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