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French protest over Macron forcing through pension reform

People took to the streets across France on Saturday after President Emmanuel Macron imposed an unpopular pension overhaul without a parliament vote.

Published: 19 March 2023 10:17 CET

French protest over Macron forcing through pension reform

A protestor holds a flare in front of riot police during strikes and protests across France against the government's proposed pensions overhaul. Photo: LOIC VENANCE/AFP

Macron’s government on Thursday invoked a controversial executive power to force through the bill by decree, which is legal according to the constitution.

The move has caused outrage among the political class as well as angry protests in the street, presenting the 45-year-old leader with one of his biggest challenges less than a year into his second and final mandate.

The president has since Thursday not made any public comments on the bill to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 or the ensuing popular discontent.

A source within his circle however told AFP on Saturday evening that he was “following developments”.

Police on Saturday banned gatherings on a key Paris square opposite parliament after two nights of unrest at the site, but protesters still rallied for a march in another part of the capital.

Among them, a 55-year-old woman, who only gave her surname as Allemand, said she was there because she couldn’t wait until she was 64 to retire.

“I’m already exhausted,” said the public health sector employee. “I sit in front of a computer screen all day. My eyes hurt, my head hurts and I’ve already had two blood clots.”

‘Fed up’

Many also demonstrated in other towns and cities around the country on Saturday after regional unions called for a weekend of protests.

Ariane Laget, 36, was among some 200 people demonstrating in the small southern town of Lodeve.

“We’re fed up. We feel like we’re being trampled on and no one is listening,” she said.

Thousands took to the streets in the western city of Nantes.

“Death to the king,” read one placard, in an apparent reference to the president.

Tensions escalated slightly in the afternoon in Nantes as some protesters lobbed bottles at member of the security forces who retaliated with tear gas, an AFP photographer said.

In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, an AFP photographer saw trash containers ablaze.

Unions have called for another day of nationwide strikes and rallies on Thursday.

Opinion polls have shown around two-thirds of French people oppose the reform, which will also require people to work longer for a full pension.

The government has said it is necessary to avoid the system from slipping into deficit, and bring France in line with its European neighbours where the legal retirement age is typically higher.

But critics say the changes are unfair for people who start working at a young age in physically challenging jobs, and women who interrupt their careers to raise children.

No-confidence vote

In parliament, opposition lawmakers have filed two motions of no confidence in the government, which are to be debated on Monday afternoon according to parliamentary sources.

They hope to garner enough support to topple the cabinet and repeal the law. But Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s government is largely expected to survive any no-confidence vote.

The motion would need backing from around half the group of opposition right-wing Republicans, a scenario seen as highly improbable.

Saturday’s protests follow two previous nights of unrest. Thousands of people rallied in Place de la Concorde opposite parliament on Friday evening to vent their frustration.

Groups of people threw bottles and fireworks at the security forces, who responded by firing tear gas to try to clear the square. Police said they made 61 arrests.

In the eastern city of Lyon, demonstrators tried to break into a town hall and set fire to the building, said police, who reported 36 arrests.

Trash strike

Protests since mid-January have garnered some of the largest crowds in decades, but the popular movement seemed to be starting to wane in the days before the government imposed the bill.

The capital’s municipal rubbish collectors have however kept up a rolling strike, leaving an estimated 10,000 tonnes of trash festering in the streets by Friday.

A union representative on Saturday said strikers at three incinerators outside Paris would let some garbage trucks through “to limit the risk of an epidemic”.

Police said trucks from five depots had resumed work.

In the energy sector, the CGT union has said strikers were halting production at two refineries over the weekend.

Unions from national train operator SNCF on Friday urged workers to continue another continuous strike.

Macron put the pension reform at the centre of his re-election campaign last year.

But the former banker lost his parliamentary majority in June after elections for the National Assembly.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.