A Belgian police officer controls traffic in front of a demonstration by police personnel in central Brussels yesterday.
AFP/Brussels
Thousands of Belgian police officers protested in Brussels yesterday against an increase in their retirement age, warning of a national strike if the incoming government fails to heed their demands.
An estimated 14,000 officers, most wearing civilian clothes, set off fireworks and blew noisy vuvuzelas as they marched through the streets after arriving here from throughout Belgium.
They are protesting against the abolition of special privileges that have allowed many police officers to retire in their fifties.
They now have to work until the age of 62, like their civil service counterparts.
Officers argued that the hardship of their job justified retiring younger, with one protester saying: “I don’t see myself running after thieves at 62 years old.”
But union leaders warned the police could stage a nationwide strike on September 23 if they do not receive a clear signal about their future from the four right-leaning parties which are negotiating the programme of the incoming government.
Belgium, which is bitterly divided between a Flemish-speaking north and Francophone south, has not had a national government since elections in May.
The parties likely to form the next coalition have indicated they want to reform retirement policies in Belgium so that people work until they are older, in a bid to save money.
Belgian public sector workers have staged a series of anti-austerity protests in recent years, particularly over pension reform.
The police officers were demonstrating after the constitutional court ruled in July to abolish privileges secured during the 2003 merger of various police forces.
Some officers enjoyed the right to retire at 54, 56 or 58 years old while others had to wait until age 60.
However, the highest court in the kingdom ruled that all police officers must retire at 62.
The merger of the police forces was part of wide-ranging reforms introduced as a result of police errors made in the notorious case of Belgian paedophile murderer Marc Dutroux.
Dutroux was jailed for life in 2004 for the kidnap and rape between June 1995 and August 1996 of six young and teenage girls, four of whom died, in a case that traumatised the nation.
