Paris: French police clashed with hundreds of black-clad anarchists in Paris and other cities during a union-led protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s retirement age hike, as workers staged Labor Day rallies across Europe. Protesters pelted Paris police with Molotov cocktails and fireworks, set fire to construction materials and vandalized bus stops. Peacefully marching protesters hooted the police and lobbed tear gas shells and lathicharged them.
Emergency services used water cannons to extinguish the blaze which had blackened the windows of nearby flats. An officer was badly injured after being hit by a fiery projectile.
Violence also broke out in Lyon and Nantes, where some vehicles were set on fire and business premises were ransacked. According to the Ministry of the Interior, about 200 people were arrested on a day when some 7,82,000 people took to the streets.
Macron last month raised the retirement age by two years to 64 despite multi-sector strikes, a move that has pushed his popularity near record lows seen during the “yellow vest” crisis of 2018-2019.
The reform has made clear discontent with a president who many see as apathetic and indifferent to their daily hardships, and has been met during walkouts aimed at rebuilding support by heckling and pot banging.
“They (the government) are trying to change the subject very quickly, but let’s just say it’s not working. So much the better!” said the sculptor Antoni Avilo.
Trade unions had called for a massive vote as they wanted to force a U-turn by Macron’s government, which pushed through its pension law without a final vote in the National Assembly, where it has a working majority. There was a lack.
Opinion polls show that a large proportion of French people oppose a higher retirement age.
“The executive cannot govern without the support of its people,” said Sophie Binet, leader of the hard-left CGT union.
Binet said the CGT has not yet decided whether to participate in negotiations with the government on other labor-related issues such as wages, working conditions and hardship benefits.
The liberal CFDT union will take part in those discussions, said its leader, Laurent Berger.
But Berger also dismissed suggestions that a rare coalition between the major trade unions is being tested now that the pensions bill has been signed into law.
The pension system is a cornerstone of France’s cherished social security model. “Retirement before arthritis!” Expressed the disgust felt by many at being asked to work long hours.
Elsewhere in Europe, Italy’s three main unions rallied in the southern city of Potenza, protesting a labor package approved by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government.
During a parade in the Swiss city of Zurich, protesters threw water balloons at police and spray painted properties.
Macron says French reform is needed to help shore up one of the industrialized world’s most generous pension systems.
French pension payments as a share of pre-retirement income are comfortably higher than elsewhere and a French person typically spends longer in retirement than in other OECD countries.
Retired metalworker Michelle Mangi said she thinks the battle over pensions is lost. Still, there were still battles to be won in negotiating working conditions, he said.
“We need to keep our chin up,” he said ahead of protests from Nantes.
The hardening of political opposition risks complicating the rest of Macron’s reform agenda, including an employment bill that would require those receiving minimum welfare benefits to work 15-20 hours per week or receive training .
Fitch on Friday downgraded France’s sovereign credit rating by one notch to ‘AA-‘, citing social unrest and a possible political backlash.