“A total of 740,000 people gathered in Franceincluding 93,000 in Paris,” the BFMTV television channel reported, citing the French Interior Ministry, while from the CGT estimated that there were around two million demonstrators throughout the country. Industrialists, merchants, trade unionists and students They expressed their resounding rejection of Macron’s measures.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that radicalized youth they planned to “destroy, injure and kill” and that for that reason he ordered a deployment “unpublished” of 13,000 police officers throughout the country.
France: 10th consecutive strike hits Macron
From the January 19the date of the first demonstration, managed to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people (3.5 million on March 7 and 23, according to the CGT union) in large peaceful protests, but without success.
The last call left last Thursday 457 detainees and 441 police officers and gendarmes injured, mostly in riots that followed marches with more than a million people across France, according to authorities.
The images of pitched battle returned to the front page on Saturday during protests against an agricultural dam destined for agribusiness in Sainte-Soline (centre-west), which left two protesters in a coma.
In this context of growing tension, Macron and the Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, assured that they would “reach out” to the unions, the spearhead of the protests since January, but without giving in on their demand to withdraw the reform.
The union’s response
Laurent Berger, leader of the moderate CFDT union, said he would agree to negotiate but only if reform, especially the delay of retirement age from 62 to 64 years. On Tuesday, he urged the creation of a “mediation process” to “find a way out” of the social crisis.
The union centrals request the withdrawal of this reform that delays the retirement age to 2030 and advances to 2027 the requirement of cotize 43 years (and not 42) to collect a full pension.
For this Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced an “unprecedented security device” of 13,000 agents in France and warned of the presence in Paris of “more than 1,000 radicals, some from abroad.”
The authorities expect “from 650,000 to 900,000″ demonstrators” and warn that the presence of young people in the marches “will double or triple,” according to police sources.
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Reuters
Tension rises in the streets
The protests have taken multiple forms for weeks: thousands of tons of garbage accumulated in the streets of Paris, blockades of deposits and refineries that left 15% of gas stations without fuel, among others.
Awaiting the opinion of the Constitutional Council On its validity, the government seeks to turn the page quickly with other priorities such as health, education and to find how to guarantee a stable majority in Parliament.
The unions had already warned Macron in mid-March of the explosive situation that would be generated if he did not listen to the discontent with the reform, which more than two out of three French people reject, according to polls.
Its definitive adoption on March 20 implied an increase in the intensity of the protests, whose repression by the police set off the alarms of human rights NGOs, lawyers, magistrates and even the Council of Europe.
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Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes.
Garbage collectors strike ended
The French CGT announced that the garbage collectors will remote their activities this Wednesday. In a historic move that began on March 6 and lasted for more than three weeks, the strike left more than 10,000 tons of waste on the streets.
The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) announced the reactivation of functions: “We will suspend our strike and blockade movement as of Wednesday, March 29.”
The protests by the collectors reside in the pension reform: the CGT union says that currently the collectors and drivers of garbage trucks they can retire at 57 years without bonuses, age that would be delayed to 59 years if the pension reform is approved.
Despite putting an end to the protest actions, the workers warned that They will discuss a form of claim with “more force” for the coming weeks. In this context, the fight against the pension reform of the liberal president Emmanuel Macron “did not end”.
With information from AFP.-
Source: Ambito
