Protesters were detained in Paris at protests on Saturday. The police used tear gas. There are more protests tonight. Garbage accumulates in the street. The French are against raising the retirement age.
At least 100 people were arrested on Saturday night during the protests in France against the raising of the retirement age, from a minimum age of 62 to 64 years. This number is lower than that of previous protests: on Thursday night, a few hours after the approval of the reform, there were more than 200 detainees throughout the country. But there are more protests scheduled for this Sunday.
This new type of protest, organized outside of parties and unions, are more volatile and unpredictable. It is not known, for now, how many people will mobilize for the demonstrations this Sunday.
Saturday night, 81 people were arrested in a demonstration on the “Place d’Italie”, in the south of the capital. It was a place chosen above the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysées in Paris, where the authorities prohibited the protests after the riots of the previous nights. Here, it is estimated that at least 4,000 people participated in the protests.
At the end of the march, included ‘slogans’ against the “authoritarianism” of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, containers were burned and barricades were erected. The police responded with tear gas to the launching of projectiles by some protesters.
A dozen people were arrested in Plaza Concordia. In Lyon, 17 were arrested in a small protest, which brought together between 400 and 500 people.
The pension reform further worsened the popularity of the French president. At the moment only 28% of the French approve of his managementthe lowest percentage of his mandates and comparable to the crisis of the “yellow vests”, the popular revolt that, in 2018, put him on a tightrope.
The Macron-led executive shows no sign of backing down on the measure. The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, assured, in an interview with Le Parisien, that the reform “will enter into force” and warned that “no type of violence will be tolerated” in the protests.
On Monday, the The Government faces two motions of censure, presented by a group of centrists and regionalists, supported by the left party, and another by the extreme right. However, the two motions are unlikely to pass if the GOP manages to maintain voting discipline.
However, the party did not achieve this same electoral discipline on March 16, when the Executive, in a relative minority, was forced to act in accordance with article 49.3 due to the absence of a clear majority in the Assembly
Union strikes against the reform continue, with several refineries blocked and strikes in the collection of garbage in Paris making themselves felt. Although the Government has forced the return of some workers for reasons of public health, thousands of tons of garbage still accumulate on the sidewalks. The Chamber of Paris, which supports the strike and does not cooperate with the Government, estimates that the amount of waste has stabilized at 10,000 tons.
Source: Observadora
