At least 100 people were detained on Saturday night during anti-government protests in France against the pension reform, which raises the minimum age from 62 to 64.
Still, this number is lower than in previous protests. On Thursday night, a few hours after the reform was approved, more than 200 were arrested throughout the country.
This new type of protest, organized outside of parties and unions, is more volatile and unpredictable, and the number of mobilizations planned for this Sunday is still unknown.
On Saturday night, 81 people were arrested in a demonstration on the “Place d’Italie” (in the south of the capital), a place chosen instead of the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysées, in Paris, where the authorities banned the protests after the riots of the previous nights.
To these, another ten people were arrested in the Plaza de la Concordia.
At the end of the march, which included “slogans” against the “authoritarianism” of 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.
In the “Place d’Italia” it is estimated that at least 4,000 people participated in the protests.
In Lyon, 17 were arrested in a small protest, which brought together between 400 and 500 people.
The pension reform has further worsened the popularity of the French president, and currently only 28% of the French approve of his management, the lowest percentage of his mandates and comparable to the crisis of the “yellow vests”, the popular revolt which, in 2018, put him on the 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 come into force” and warned that “no type of violence will be tolerated” in the protests.
The Government is facing two motions of censure this Monday, presented by a group of centrists and regionalists, supported by the left-wing party, and another by the extreme right.
However, both motions are unlikely to pass if the GOP manages to maintain the electoral discipline it failed to achieve on March 16 when the relatively minority executive was forced to act under Section 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.
Despite the fact that the government forced the return of some workers for public health reasons, 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: TSF
