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Dozens of protesters were arrested and police injured Friday during a second night of violent clashes in Paris over French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to raise the country’s retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly.
Several thousand people gathered in Place de la Concorde around a large bonfire as demonstrators continued to put pressure on the Macron government, which faces a no-confidence vote on Monday. Chants of “Macron, resign” were heard in the crowd.
As on Thursday evening, special forces charged into the crowd and used tear gas to devastate the huge square opposite the National Assembly. Some protesters grabbed wooden planks from a nearby repair site to arm themselves, throwing fireworks and rocks at the police.
According to France Info and other local media, at least five officers were injured in the melee and 60 to 70 protesters were taken into custody.
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PHOTO: Protests erupt in France after Macron pushed through pension reform
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told radio station RTL that 310 people had been arrested the night before, most of them in Paris.
On Friday evening, small groups broke away from the main crowd and started street fires in nearby areas.
By Saturday dawn, these streets and the Place de la Concorde had largely returned to calm.
Police officers stand under tear gas during a protest in Paris, Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly).
(AP Photo/Lewis Jolie)
Demonstrators hold a banner of French President Emmanuel Macron reading “metro, work, grave” during a protest in Paris, Friday, March 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly).
(AP Photo/Lewis Jolie)
A demonstrator with tear gas during a protest in Paris, Friday, March 17, 2023 (AP Photo/Lewis Joly).
(AP Photo/Lewis Jolie)
Mostly small scattered protests took place in the cities of France, from a march in Bordeaux to a rally in Toulouse.
Trade unions uniting the opposition called on demonstrators to keep the peace during more strikes and marches in the coming days. They urged people to leave schools, factories, refineries and other jobs to force Macron to abandon his plan to force the French to work two more years, up to the age of 64, before receiving a full pension.
Macron’s government has said the plan is needed to rescue an overburdened pension system. But the French are determined to keep the official retirement age at 62, one of the lowest in the OECD.
“We’re not going to stop,” CGT union spokesman Regis Wiesely told the Associated Press on Friday. He said that flooding the streets with discontent and refusing to continue working is “the only way to get them to back down.”
Parisian garbage collectors have extended their strike to 12 days, and heaps of stinking garbage are growing daily in the French capital. Striking orderlies continued blockading Europe’s largest incinerator and two other waste treatment facilities in Paris.
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The streets of Paris are littered with garbage due to the strike of pensioners
Teachers’ unions have called for a strike next week that could disrupt symbolic high school baccalaureate exams.
Some Yellow Vest activists who staged massive protests against Macron’s economic policies during his first term were among those who broadcast Friday’s protest in Paris on social media. Police say there are “radicalized yellow vests” among the troublemakers at the protest marches.
Demonstrators gather at a burning barricade during a protest in Paris, Friday, March 17, 2023. Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push through Parliament a bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a vote. collections and university campuses in Paris as the opponents of change remain determined to force the government to back down. (AP Photo/Lewis Jolie).
Demonstrators roll a wooden cable spool towards a burning barricade during a protest in Paris, Friday, March 17, 2023. Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push a bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 through parliament without a vote disrupted traffic. garbage collection and university campuses in Paris as the opponents of change maintained their determination to force the government to back down. (AP Photo/Lewis Jolie).
Macron has asked Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne to invoke special constitutional powers to avoid a chaotic vote in the lower house on Thursday amid fears he will fail to win majority support for the plan.
MPs from the left and center opposition announced a no-confidence vote in parliament on Friday afternoon.
If the votes of no confidence fail, the bill becomes law. If the majority agrees, it would mean the end of the pension reform plan and force the government to resign, although Macron can always reappoint Born to appoint a new cabinet.
But the demonstrators made it clear that Macron’s attempt had crossed a line.
Continuing to vote without a vote “is a denial of democracy … a complete denial of what’s been going on in the streets for weeks,” psychologist Nathalie Alquier, 52, told Reuters in Paris. “It’s just unbearable.”
– with Associated Press and Reuters files
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