The twelfth day of protests in France over the pension reform has given rise to new riots in the streets with clashes with the police since early afternoon.
In Nantes and Rennes there have already been violent clashes between protesters and security forces. In Nantes, police had to fire tear gas to try to disperse violent protesters. At the same time, these have burned containers and barricades.
Meanwhile, in Rennes there have also been acts of vandalism, such as the breaking shop windows and street furnitureas well as the burning of two vehicles of the Mercedes and Tesla brand, according to local media reports.
The authorities expected that between 400,000 and 600,000 people would take to the streets to protest this Thursday, below the figures for the protests on March 28.
The demonstrations have been called for this Thursday because it is the eve of the day in which the Constitutional Council will decide if the reform promoted by Emmanuel Macron is valid, after which it would be promulgated. The Ministry of the Interior has prohibited demonstrations in front of the Constitutional from this afternoon until Saturday morning. The Police have shielded access to the building.
Unions won’t stop
The leaders of the French unions warned this Thursday that their action against the pension reform of the president, Emmanuel Macron, will continue whatever the opinion of the Constitutional Council may be tomorrow.
“The union fight is far from over”said the secretary general of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor (CFDT), Laurent Berger, in statements to the press at the beginning of the demonstration in Paris.
Berger explained that even if the Constitutional Council validates the law and Macron promulgates it, its application would still be pending.
The leader of the first French trade union center, who insisted that he neither questions nor will he question the legitimacy of the Constitutional Council to say if this text conforms to the Magna Carta, pointed out that the President of the Republic still has time to not promulgate the reform attending to the strong opposition that it generates.
He was convinced that “the battle of opinion, the battle of the world of work, we have won” in the almost three months of mobilizations against a reform whose main axis -the most controversial- is the delay of the minimum retirement age from the current 62 years to 64.
The general secretary of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT, the second union in France), Sophie Binet, also warned that today “is not the last day of mobilization” and called on Macron not to promulgate the law because , if he does, “he will not be able to run the country.”
In Binet’s opinion, the text “you won’t get away unscathed” of the evaluation of the Constitutional Council, which he asked to issue a legal decision, which in that case would have to “sanction” its content.
Regarding the announcement made yesterday by Macron, which showed his intention to summon the unions, the main stakeholders were suspicious of his intentions.
Berger indicated that his union attends all the calls in which issues of interest to the workers are discussed, but here “the question is when, with what method and to talk about what issues.”
He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the intention of the head of state to turn the page to trying to make people forget the rejection of their reform, after until now neither he himself nor his Government had responded to their demands for consultation.
Binet, for his part, also complained that Macron summons them only now, when the unions had asked him for a meeting a month ago and emphasized that a meeting now would have to be for “the withdrawal of this pension reform “.
The spokesman for the Executive, Olivier Véran, affirmed that with tomorrow’s opinion of the Constitutional Council “the legislative path will be finished” and only its promulgation will remain by Macron who, he added, has said that “he is willing to discuss with the social forces of our country” of other future reforms.
Before the union parade began in Paris, which left the Place de l’Opéra, some groups of protesters were walking around the Champs-Élysées avenue and broke into the headquarters of the luxury giant LVMH, the first capitalization, for a few minutes. stock market in Europe and a symbol for some of the excesses of capitalism.
In Rennes (northwest) there were incidents on the sidelines of the demonstration, with some cars set on fire, as well as garbage containers.
In general terms, the strikes on this twelfth day of mobilization since mid-January had less impact, particularly in public transport.
