Continued protest against pension reform in France, gang warfare in Paris

In France, the ninth day of demonstrations against a pension reform that would raise the minimum age for leaving work from 62 to 64. Paris passed a giant procession, and clashes and arrests took place in other cities. The Parisian demonstration began peacefully from the Bastille, but on the way to the Opéra Garnier, a hundred black masses attacked a fast food restaurant, smashing the windows of a bank and a convenience store, destroying benches and shelters.

It is now a guerrilla war in Paris, as groups of young men in masks invade the Bastille area and the streets of the Marais tonight, after the official end of the demonstration, setting boxes on fire and setting off large firecrackers. In a general stampede, the police and gendarmes rushed to the area, attacked the youths – who had already fled – and threw several tear gas canisters into the square. Sirens and the smell of tear gas startled people sitting at tables in the bars and passers-by.

leader of La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchonhe tweeted: “We are writing a great page in the social history of France. We wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for a topic like Two Years of Free Life or Shackle at stake.”

In Bordeaux, where accidents are particularly serious, the large wooden gate at the entrance to the town hall caught fire. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who installed himself tonight in the corridors of the Prefecture of Paris, praised the work of the police and gendarmes “targeted with unacceptable attacks” by people who left the demonstrations. The minister updated the numbers Inc., which rose today to 172 in France, including 77 in Paris.

Police forces tried to intervene, but they were targeted with objects, stones, and Molotov cocktails. Firefighters intervened several times to extinguish the raging flames. 123 policemen and gendarmes were wounded. The number of detainees has now risen to 80.

Pension reform in France, strained on the Grand Boulevard in Paris

As usual, the numbers of people participating in the demonstrations differed greatly between the version put forward by the unions and the police version. But either way, today those records are either equalized or broken. If there were 800,000 at the CGT in Paris, the police accounted for 119,000, in both cases the highest since the protest began two months ago. As for the number of demonstrators in France, it amounted to 3.6 million (an equal record) for the General Confederation of Workers, and 1 million and 89,000 for the police.

Pension reform in France, the railway tracks are occupied at the Gare de Lyon in Paris

During the events of the Black Bloc, a policeman was hit on the head by a “cobblestone” that broke off the road surface and was urgently taken to hospital. There were also incidents in Le Havre in the north where 8 people were arrested for damaging street furniture and setting fire to boxes and public items. Eight were also arrested in Rouen, Normandy, where 11 other people were being treated for injuries sustained during the clashes. Among them is a woman who complains that her thumb has been amputated.

France: Reform of the pension system, the arrival of the Paris procession to the Place de la Republique

In the wake of the president’s televised interview, which drew poisonous criticism from unions and opponents, the French continue the ninth day of national strikes and mobilization against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform. In a live interview on TF1 and France 2 after weeks of social tensions, Macron went straight for it, announcing that the reform – the most important of his five-year tenure at the Elysee – would be implemented “by the end of the year” and he said he was ready to put up with all the ” Necessary unpopularity in the name of the higher interest of the nation.

“This reform is not a pleasure, it is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” the head of state shocked in the interview and was followed by 10 million viewers, according to data from MediaMetri, convinced of the importance of his project, which provides for a gradual increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A level that, in any case, will remain lower than that offered years ago by all the other major European partners, including Italy and Germany.