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Fresh clashes rock France as protests shift to water dispute

French police again clashed with protesters Saturday as campaigners in the southwest sought to stop the construction of giant water storage facilities, the latest flashpoint as social tensions erupt nationwide.

Fresh clashes rock France as protests shift to water dispute
A French Republican Security Corps (CRS - Compagnies Republicaines de Securite) police officer. Photo: LOU BENOIST/AFP

The violent scenes in Sainte-Soline in western France came after days of violent protests nationwide over President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform that prompted the cancellation of a visit by King Charles III of the UK.

A long procession set off late morning, comprising at least 6,000 people according to local authorities and around 30,000 according to the organisers.

More than 3,000 members of the security forces were deployed, with “at least 1,000” potentially violent activists, including some from Italy, present, officials said.

Around the construction site, defended by the police, violent clashes quickly broke out between the security forces and radical militants, AFP correspondents said.

Multiple projectiles and improvised explosives were thrown by protesters, with police responding with tear gas and water cannon.

“While the country is rising up to defend pensions, we will simultaneously stand up to defend water,” said the organisers gathering under the banner of “Bassines non merci” (“No thank you to reservoirs”).

‘Completely inexcusable’ 

According to the latest figures from the prosecutor’s office, seven demonstrators were injured, including three who had to be taken to hospital.

In addition, 28 gendarmes were injured, two of them badly enough that they had to be hospitalised.

Two journalists were also injured.

The alliance of activist groups behind the protests said 200 of their number had been injured, and one of them was fighting for their life, information not confirmed by the authorities.

In a tweet supporting the work of the emergency services there, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne denounced “the intolerable wave of violence” at Sainte-Soline.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also condemned the violence, blaming elements from the “ultra-left and the extreme left”.

Eleven people were detained after police seized cold weapons, including petanque balls and meat knives, as well as explosives.

While not directly related to the anti-pensions reform campaign, the clashes over the water reservoir construction have added to tensions in an increasingly challenging situation for the government.

The government is bracing for another difficult day on Tuesday when unions are due to hold another round of strikes and protests. That would have fallen on the second full day of Charles’s visit.

The recent scenes in France have sparked astonishment abroad. “Chaos reigns in France,” said The Times of London above a picture of rubbish piling up.

In France, Macron has faced accusations from the left that he removed a luxury watch in the middle of a television interview Wednesday, fearing images of the timepiece could further damage his reputation.

‘I will not give up’

Uproar over legislation to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 was inflamed when Macron exercised a controversial executive power to push the plan through parliament without a vote last week.

The streets of the capital are strewn with rubbish because of a strike by waste collectors.

But there has also been controversy over the tactics used by the French security forces to disperse the protests.

On Friday, the Council of Europe warned that sporadic violence in protests “cannot justify excessive use of force”.

Macron has refused to offer concessions, saying in a televised interview Wednesday that the changes needed to “come into force by the end of the year”.

The Le Monde daily said Macron’s “inflexibility” was now worrying even “his own troops” among the ruling party.

In another sign of the febrile atmosphere, the leader of Macron’s faction in parliament, Aurore Berge, posted on Twitter a handwritten letter she received threatening her four-month-old baby with physical violence, prompting expressions of solidarity across the political spectrum.

It remains unclear how the government will defuse the crisis, four years after the “Yellow Vest” demonstrations rocked the country.

Borne is under particular pressure.

But she told a conference on Saturday: “I will not give up on building compromises… I am here to find agreements and carry out the transformations necessary for our country and for the French,” she said.

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SCHOOLS

French teachers call school boycott day in streaming protest

French teaching unions are calling on parents to keep their children at home on Thursday, as part of a protest against plans to introduce academic streaming into schools.

French teachers call school boycott day in streaming protest

In protest against ‘streaming’ (groupes de niveaux), teachers’ unions and parent associations are calling on parents to keep their collège (aged 11-15) pupils home on Thursday.

They have named these actions opération collège mort (operation dead school) or opération collège désert (operation deserted school).

Teachers will technically would not be on strike – meaning they can accommodate pupils who could not stay home.

Unions are also calling for demonstrations in front of the entrances of schools, with several expected in the Bordeaux area, as well as in Seine-Saint-Denis and Paris.

The protests are about plans to introduce streaming or tracking of pupils – grouping them according to their academic abilities – for maths and French classes. At present streaming is not widespread in French schools, and the idea is a controversial one, with teaching unions saying that it undermines the principle of equality.

READ MORE: Why ‘streaming’ in French schools is causing controversy (and strikes)

There will also be a protest at 12pm on Thursday in front of the Prime Minister’s residence at Matignon in Paris.

So far, the actions have had varying support depending on the collège.

Last week, 25 Paris-based collèges participated in the opérations collège mort, after an appeal from the Federation of Parents’ Councils (FCPE), French daily Le Parisien estimated.

On March 11th, opérations collège mort saw 97 percent of pupils at the Raoul-Rebout collège in the Indre-et-Loire département absent, and prior to that 50 out of the 627 pupils at the Jacques-Prévert college in the Gironde département were absent during an opération mort on March 8th.

Why are people protesting?

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced plans to introduce streaming in December as part of a choc des savoirs (clash of knowledge) intended to help get mathematics and reading comprehension scores up.

The proposal was formalised in France’s Journal Officiel on Sunday, and starting September 2024 6ème and 5ème pupils (the first to years of collège) will be streamed in mathematics and French courses.

The plan has been met with outcry from teachers, teaching unions and parents who fear it will reinforce existing social inequality, with less advantaged students stigmatised and put into lower-level groups.

There are also concerns that sorting will not address greater issues within the school system, namely staff shortages and already overcrowded classrooms.

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