France's strikes cost £357m a day

Rotting piles of rubbish – now nearly 9,000 tons – are becoming a health hazard in Marseille which has also been hit by striking dockers blocking ships trying to unload fuel.

The country's 12 refineries have been shut for nearly two weeks. The government has forced some of them to make stocked fuel available, but at least a quarter of filling stations have run dry.

President Nicolas Sarkozy stood firm amid the growing pressure, determined to reform the retirement system to ensure funds for future generations as life expectancy increases and the nation's debt soars.

The bill to overhaul France's pension plan is to be definitively voted on this week by the two houses of parliament, probably by Wednesday, after a meeting of a committee that wrote a final version of laws to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. It is all but certain to pass.

"We must be aware that in a world without borders we can't have a French exception...that exists nowhere else," said MP Pierre Mehaignerie, of Mr Sarkozy's UMP party.

Strikers are counting on derailing the measure before it is signed into law after this week's final voting.

Rubbish and fuel are critical weapons for the strikers, who say the reform is unjust. Besides raising the minimum retirement age to 62, it increases the age to access full retirement benefits from 65 to 67. It was only in 1982 that French employees won the right to retire at 60.

Workers at a large Paris waste incinerator, in their fifth day of a strike, were catching up with colleagues who have let rubbish pile up in Marseille, the nation's second-largest city.

Marseille has requisitioned workers to try to clean up some of the mounds of filth after warning of a "growing risk for people's safety".

Final passage of the pension reform legislation through parliament this week has not deterred unions, which have already announced two new nationwide protests – for Thursday and November 6.

The strikes have hit a wide swathe of the economy and life in France, sporadically in some cases, like at schools and post offices.

A national train strike that started October 12 has been tapering off, but oil refinery workers, who have been on strike for about two weeks, are chipping away at the economy.

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that it was difficult to put a daily price tag on the strikes, but she estimated it at up to 400m euros. Beyond that, the strikes were damaging France's image, she said.

Ms Lagarde said foreign news stations were constantly playing clips of the French protests.

"The territory's attractiveness is put into question when you see images like that," she said.

The fuel-dependent transport industry is among the sectors suffering. Nicolas Paulissen, deputy head of the industry body FNTR, said operators were losing money over lost business and an "explosion of costs." He said it was too early to pin down a figure.

Demonstrations against the retirement reform have brought millions onto the streets. Polls have shown that most French people support the

strikers. Meanwhile, Mr Sarkozy's popularity is plummeting.

A poll published in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper showed that only 29 per cent of those surveyed were satisfied with Mr Sarkozy's performance. It was the French leader's lowest rating since taking office in 2007.