French protests reach climax ahead of ruling on Macron’s controversial pension reform plan
by It was almost a last chance to get their voices heard ahead of a critical ruling on France’s pension reforms.
Across France, nearly 400,000 took to the streets, according to the interior ministry.
Unions dispute that, putting the figure at 1.5 million.
Amongst them was a 68-year-old man called Jean-Pierre who used to work in cinema and who told us he’d enjoyed the benefits of retiring at 62.
Efforts by the French government to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 won’t affect him – but he’s here in Paris to show solidarity and tell those in their youth that this is a cause worth fighting for.
A 33-year-old beautician called Manon though tells us there’s more to all this.
It’s the way President Emmanuel Macron has gone about trying to push through the reforms that really rankles.
Without an absolute majority in parliament, he’s deployed a mechanism called Article 49.3 to bypass the National Assembly.
The Constitutional Council will decide if he’s allowed to do that.
The protesters say it’s not only the prospect of working longer in life which is driving them on to the streets. Ahead of that decision, there’s almost a crescendo to protests which began in mid-January crippling the country.
Inevitably things turned violent again – there’s a pattern to how this has rolled out over the last 12 weeks.
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The unions and ordinary workers are loud and angry as they traipse the streets in a march which winds through iconic landmarks.
Then at the end, the hardcore of demonstrators – the so-called ‘Black Bloc’ – appears to take over and take on the riot police.
What happens next is almost like choreographed theatre. The protesters throw missiles like rocks and bottles and the police push forward to repel them.
After sporadic clashes for hours, it’s the last stand of the day taken outside the new Opera House – aptly in the Place de la Bastille which was the backdrop to the French Revolution.
As night fell things quietened down. With such a significant decision expected on Friday it may well be the calm before the storm.