OUTSIDE the Opéra Bastille in Paris last Thursday, hundreds of students were gathering under a leaden sky to protest against new university reforms. Watching them from a high balcony in the opera foyer was Philippe Taberlet, a 47-year-old sound engineer.

Taberlet, who has curly shoulder-length hair and wears a silver earring, loves his job. He has been helping to put on operas in Paris for more than two decades. But that will not stop him and hundreds of colleagues from going on strike this week against government plans to do away with their generous retirement packages.

The premiere on Wednesday of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite will probably have to be cancelled.

“It is a shame,” admitted Taberlet, entering a cabin overlooking the stage from where he monitors the sound levels.

“But it is a question of defending our rights. This is the way we do things here,” he added, gesturing in the direction of the students.

From opera employees to fishermen, train drivers, civil servants and postmen, there is scarcely a sector that does not complain of some “right” being eroded as Nicolas Sarkozy, the hyperactive president, brings in reforms that will make France more competitive. Even the judges have said that they will protest against the reorganisation of a court system dating from the days of Napoleon.

An indefinite national transport strike in defence of retirement privileges will begin on Tuesday and is set to build into a wave of protest, the first serious test of Sarkozy’s ability to change France.

It will be just as much a test of the French unions and their knack for intimidating governments and settling political grievances on the streets.

The result could be a drawn-out confrontation and even civil unrest if the protests turn violent and frustrated commuters vent their fury on the strikers – or the government.

“People depending on the public services can expect a black November,” said Nicolas Baverez, an economist. “But Nicolas Sarkozy must hold firm in this trial of strength, or hopes for the recovery of France will be dashed.”

Nothing demonstrates more graphically the French allergy to reform than the battle over the “special pension packages”. Arrangements for the 1,680 staff working at the Paris Opéra have remained largely unchanged since they were fixed under the reign of Louis XIV.

Members of the opera choir can retire at the age of 50.

Dancers can bow out at 40, after just a decade of service. They will receive 90% of their last salary, as well as generous healthcare benefits, not to mention free opera tickets for life. It is the same for workers at the Comédie Française theatre.

Train drivers used to justify their cushy retirement deals – they can stop work at 50 – on the grounds of the hardship involved in their job. However, that argument arouses less sympathy these days than it did in the age of steam.

The same applies to stage hands at the Opéra Bastille. “It’s quite tough physically,” insisted Taberlet, pointing to scenery at the back of the gargantuan stage that would have to be put into place for that night’s performance of Tosca. However, he did acknowledge that most of the scene-changing was done mechanically these days.

As for his own job, perched at a console of knobs, he said that it could be “quite stressful” and working evenings did not allow for much of a social life. He had little sympathy for Sarkozy’s election campaign mantra that he wanted people to “work more to earn more”.

“That’s an American idea, isn’t it?” said Taberlet.

A first transport strike on October 18 failed to provoke a government retreat. Since then the union rhetoric has hardened around the idea of inflicting the first defeat on Sarkozy’s “hyper-presidency”.

In one sign of change, a plaque on the wall of the house where Lenin once lived in Paris was recently removed; but the ideas that the leader of the Russian revolution stood for have found shelter in the ranks of the radical French left.

To outsiders the rhetoric may sound quaint, but among the students protesting on Thursday were militants for whom the debate over pension privileges and university reforms was merely a pretext for rallying support in a wider struggle against capitalism and a president whom they regard as a dangerous rightwinger.

“We cannot allow our universities to be run on capitalist principles,” said Henri Collard, a shaven-headed philosophy student in a camouflage jacket, referring to a new law allowing universities more freedom to run their own affairs.

Sarkozy, the 52-year-old son of a Hungarian immigrant, put a brave face on his difficulties, which have been compounded by his recent divorce from his wife Cécilia. Six months after his election victory he is vowing to fulfil all his campaign promises. On his first official visit to Washington last week, he ticked another box by mending tattered relations with America.

An aide warned, however, that it was too early to judge him: “It is as though we were still in the first 10 minutes of a 90-minute game.”

According to one opinion poll, 76% of French people believe that the lives of their children will be “more difficult” than theirs. Some believe such pessimism could help the government to win support for its argument that failure to reform will cripple the next generation.

Whatever the case, the next few weeks could be decisive – and painful as well – for commuters and lovers of opera.

Everybody out

Transport workers are striking over government plans to do away with special retirement privileges.

Civil servants will also go on strike over a plan to streamline the bureaucracy.

Judges and court clerks plan a protest against reforms to the court system.

Air France cabin crew have threatened to resume a strike in time for the Christmas season.

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