In France, hundreds of thousands of people have again protested against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform – the constitutional council wants to judge its legality this Friday. In many cities, the unions had called for rallies for the twelfth time on Thursday. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 380,000 people took part in the protests across the country, and the trade unions spoke of over a million participants. In any case, support for the protests fell noticeably again compared to the previous week.
Across the country, roads, railway tracks and refineries were blocked on Thursday – but in the end the impairments were manageable. Garbage collectors in Paris went on strike again and the CGT union threatened to turn the capital into a public dump until the reform was withdrawn.
The deployment of 11,500 police officers was planned, 4,200 of them in Paris. The protests, which were initially peaceful for many weeks, have recently repeatedly resulted in violence and clashes. In Paris, banks and expensive shops protected their shop windows with wooden panels as a precaution. In the capital, demonstrators broke into the headquarters of the luxury group LVMH on Thursday and set off fireworks. Clashes between protesters and the police were reported from Nantes and Rennes. There were also some scuffles and arrests in Paris.
The protests are directed against the gradual increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. With the reform that has now been passed, the middle government wants to close an impending gap in the pension fund. The dispute aggravated because the government pushed the text without a vote by the National Assembly. President Emmanuel Macron wants the reform to come into force by the end of the year. (dpa)