- A national strike is taking place in France after President Emmanuel Macron’s circumvention of parliament to pass the divisive pension bill.
- A total of 457 people were arrested and 441 security forces injured on Thursday during nationwide protests against the said pensions reform, the Interior Minister said.
- Minister also said that there had been 903 fires lit in the streets of Paris during by far the most violent day of protests since they began in January.
- The mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, condemned it saying “I have difficulty in understanding and accepting this sort of vandalism, why would you make a target of our communal building, of all people of Bordeaux?
- The ninth day of action against the pension overhaul saw 1.09 million people turn out across the country.
- The president said: “We cannot accept rebels and factions.”
A national strike is taking place in France after President Emmanuel Macron’s circumvention of parliament to pass the divisive pension bill which would raise the retirement age by two years. A total of 457 people were arrested and 441 security forces injured on Thursday during nationwide protests against the said pensions reform, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
Speaking to the CNews channel on Friday morning, Darmanin also said that there had been 903 fires lit in the streets of Paris during by far the most violent day of protests since they began in January. “There were a lot of demonstrations and some of them turned violent, notably in Paris,” Darmanin added, saying the toll was “difficult” while praising the police for protecting the more than million people who marched around France.On Thursday, the entrance to Bordeaux city hall was set on fire during clashes in the southwestern wine-exporting hub.
Police had warned that anarchist groups were expected to infiltrate the Paris march and young men wearing hoods and facemasks were seen smashing windows and setting fire to uncollected rubbish in the latter stages of the demonstration.
Darmanin, a right wing hardliner in Macron’s centrist government, dismissed calls from protesters to withdraw the pensions reform which cleared parliament last week in controversial circumstances. “I don’t think we should withdraw this law because of violence,” he said. “If so, that means there’s no state. We should accept a democratic, social debate, but not a violent debate.”
“I have difficulty in understanding and accepting this sort of vandalism,” the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, told RTL radio on Friday. “Why would you make a target of our communal building, of all the people of Bordeaux? I can only condemn it in the strongest possible terms.” He added. British King Charles III is set to visit the southwestern city next Tuesday, and had been expected to visit the city hall and meet with Hurmic.
The ninth day of action against the pension overhaul saw 1.09 million people turn out across the country, according to the Interior Ministry. The portion of public-sector workers joining in walkouts was up sharply on Thursday from a week earlier, though well below its peak on the first day of protests in mid-January, preliminary government figures showed.
Macron, who had largely left his prime minister, Elisabeth Borne, to bear the brunt of pushing the pension reform through parliament, appeared on French TV on Wednesday and argued the overhaul is needed for the sake of public finances. The president added: “We cannot accept rebels and factions.”
