Rioters smashed shop fronts and tried to set fire to police officers in Paris as up to a million people marched across France in May Day protests against President Macron’s reform to the pension age. Young men dressed in black from the anarchist “black block” movement were joined by hardline yellow vest protesters on a rampage at the front of the peaceful union-organised march, which moved through central Paris from the Place de la République to the Place de la Nation. The anarchists broke shop windows and bank frontages and set fire to bins as riot police on motorcycles moved in.
Officers using teargas and batons arrested several dozen violent protesters in the capital and at similar outbreaks on the edges of marches in Lyons, Toulouse and Nantes, which were staged by unions and left-wing parties as a “show of contempt” for Macron’s reform. About 12,000 police had been deployed for the marches after the interior ministry said it expected trouble from two or three thousand black block “wreckers” and violent followers of the yellow vest movement, whose protests inflicted heavy damage in Paris and other cities in 2018 and 2019.
Protesters from the radical climate movements were also active, spraying paint on shop fronts in the Place Vendôme, the central Paris home to jewellery shops, and also on the façade of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the contemporary art museum financed by LVMH, the luxury brand giant.
Flights were also badly disrupted by a one-day strike by air-traffic controllers.
#Manif1erMai | Courage à l’ensemble des forces de secours et de sécurité intérieure engagées pour protéger et secourir, et permettre à tous de s’exprimer dans le calme et la sécurité.
Les incendies des mobiliers urbains peuvent avoir des conséquences dramatiques. pic.twitter.com/3FLYpxjcNy
— Pompiers de France (@PompiersFR) May 1, 2023
The rise in retirement age from 62 to 64 became law a month ago after Macron forced it through parliament by executive order despite weeks of strikes and violent protests. Macron and Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, are counting on anger against the pension reform subsiding ahead of the new pension age taking effect in September. Borne condemned the violence, in which at least one police officer was seriously injured. “This May Day was a moment for responsible mobilisation and commitment. The scenes of violence on the sidelines of the demonstrations are all the more unacceptable,” she said on Twitter. The French government said 291 people had been arrested and 108 police officers injured.
Union leaders, however, mocked the government’s hopes that the May Day protests would be a final hurrah for a revolt that is losing steam. “This May Day is a milestone,” Sophie Binet, leader of the hard left CGT union, said. “It will serve to say that we will not move on until this reform is withdrawn.” Binet, who has just taken over the former Communist Party union, said the black block protesters were disrupting a peaceful march. She also deplored the use by police of surveillance drones, a new practice that has been challenged in the courts and increased anger towards Macron.
Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT, the biggest union, said the president had shown that he was “deaf” to the people of France. “The turnout is very strong and it shows that anger is not subsiding,” he added. Laurent Nuñez, chief of the Paris police, defended the aggressive tactics of the riot police and gendarmerie. “They are protecting demonstrators,” he said.
French police tactics came under fresh fire from several countries on Monday at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Sweden’s representative said France “must take measures to, in a transparent manner, address allegations regarding excessive use of force by police and gendarmerie against protesters during demonstrations.”
In a review of France’s record on human rights, the United States was also among countries urging France to do more to combat racial and religious discrimination.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seo-france-strikes-as-kicker-also-pension-fz3w3vf59