The French Polynesian assembly has urged France to have a moratorium on its pension reform plan while at the same in Paris the French council of ministers went ahead to approve the plan.
This comes after last week's street protests in Tahiti and in New Caledonia where public sector unions called for the pension system to be left unchanged.
The reforms aim at tightening eligibility criteria for additional entitlements introduced in 1952 for public servants in the colonies.
In an extraordinary sitting in Papeete, the assembly heard harsh words about the junior French minister, Yves Jego, who has been pushing for the change.
He has been labelled a liar who has misinformed the public and who has failed to understand the social situation in French Polynesia.
Mr Jego told a Papeete newspaper that French Polynesian politicians try to make people believe they live in a bubble outside this world.
