Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS

Demos against Macron, Le Pen and the health pass planned in Paris

This Saturday - the mid-point of the second round of the presidential election - will be marked by multiple demonstrations in Paris. Here's what is happening.

Published: 15 April 2022 14:26 CEST
Demos against Macron, Le Pen and the health pass planned in Paris
Multiple demonstrations are planned for Paris this weekend. Photo by GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP

If you’re in central Paris over the weekend, expect to see at least one demo.

Anti far-right

The one that is expected to be the largest is a union-organisation demonstration against the far right.

Jointly organised by the League of Human Rights with several unions (CGT, FSE, FSU, FAGE, Unef) the protest is to express anger over the presence of far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election.

Numerous campaign and pressure groups have also said they will be attending this, including Greenpeace France, Osez le Féminisme, SOS Racisme, the Cimade, Marche des Solidarités, Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth and 350.org.

A spokesman said: “The extreme right is once again present in the second round of the presidential election, with an unprecedented level of votes. We refuse to see it come to power.”

The demo starts at 2pm on Saturday at Place de la Nation, moving to Place de la République.

Organisers have also called for demonstrations across France.

A march in Marseille is set to start at the Vieux Port at 2pm on Saturday and a demonstration is to take place on Wednesday, April 20th, in front of the Strasbourg central campus law school with the aim of “making the voice of youth heard in the face of the Macron-Le Pen battle”.

Anti Macron

Not taking this lying down, the far right have organised a demonstration against Emmanuel Macron – Le Pen’s rival in the second round of the election on April 24th.

The demonstration is organised by Les Patriotes, a group headed by anti-vaxxer Florian Phillipott, who is a former member of Rassemblement National and remains close to Le Pen.

Organisers say the event is anti-Macron and will call on people to vote for his rival.

It starts at 3pm in Place Fontenoy in the 7th arrondissement. 

Anti health pass

The health pass has been scrapped for almost all venues in France, but a small group of ‘yellow vests’ are still protesting about it.

This demo will start at 11am in Place de l’Italie, moving to Place de la Nation, while a second anti-health pass march will follow the route of the anti far-right march, leaving at 1pm.

The anti-health pass protests have been happening every Saturday since last summer, but although they initially attracted tens of thousands of participants, in recent months the turnout has numbered no more than a couple of dozen.

Pro Ukraine

And finally a march showing solidarity with Ukraine against the Russian invasion will go in the opposite direction, starting at Place de la République and heading to Place de la Nation, on Saturday afternoon.

This has been a regular event since the invasion 50 days ago.

Member comments

  1. My wife has just announced that, as part of her French birthright, she will on Saturday be leading a demonstration against demonstrations.

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ECONOMY

S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded France's credit score on Friday citing a deterioration in the country's budgetary position, a blow to Emmanuel Macron's government days before EU parliamentary elections.

Published: 1 June 2024 15:44 CEST
S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

In a statement, the American credit assessor justified its decision to drop France’s long-term sovereign debt rating from “AA” to “AA-” on concerns over lower-than-expected growth.

It warned that “political fragmentation” would make it difficult for the government to implement planned reforms to balance public finances and forecast the budget deficit would remain above the targeted three percent of GDP in 2027.

The S&P’s first downgrade of France since 2013 puts the EU’s second-largest economy on par with the Czech Republic and Estonia but above Spain and Italy.

The announcement will sting for Macron, who has staked a reputation as an economic reformer capable of restoring France’s accounts after low growth and high spending.

The risk of a ratings downgrade had been looming for several quarters, with the previous “AA” assessment given a “negative outlook”.

The surprise slippage in the public deficit for 2023 to 5.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) instead of the expected 4.9 percent did not play in the government’s favour.

France’s general government debt will increase to about 112 percent of GDP by 2027, up from around 109 percent in 2023, “contrary to our previous expectations”, the agency added.

Responding to the downgrade decision, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire reaffirmed the government’s commitment to slashing the public deficit to below three percent by 2027.

“Our strategy remains the same: reindustrialise, achieve full employment and keep to our trajectory to get back under the three percent deficit in 2027,” he said in an interview with newspaper Le Parisien, insisting that nothing would change in the daily lives of the French.

Le Maire claimed the downgrade was primarily driven by the government’s abundant spending during the Covid pandemic to provide a lifeline to businesses and French households.

The main reason for the downgrade was because “we saved the French economy,” he said.

Government critics offered a different rationale.

“This is where the pitiful management of public finances by the Macron/Le Maire duo gets us!” Eric Ciotti, head of the right-wing Republicans party, wrote on social media platform X.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called the Macron administration’s handling of public finances “catastrophic” and denounced the government as being “as incompetent as they are arrogant”.

A credit downgrade risks putting off investors and making it more difficult to pay off debt.

Earlier this year, influential ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch spared handing France a lower note.

S&P also maintained its “stable” outlook for France on Friday on “expectations that real economic growth will accelerate and support the government’s budgetary consolidation”, albeit not enough to bring down its high debt-to-GDP ratio.

“S&P’s downgrading of France’s debt simply reflects an imperative that we are already aware of: the need to continue restoring our public finances,” Public Accounts Minister Thomas Cazenave wrote in a statement sent to AFP.

SHOW COMMENTS