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Is France facing a rerun of the ‘yellow vest’ protests?

French President Emmanuel Macron's move to force through his pension reform by short-circuiting parliament may well rekindle social unrest reminiscent of the Yellow Vest movement, experts have warned.

Is France facing a rerun of the 'yellow vest' protests?
A protester wearing a hood stands next to a burning new kiosk beside the Place de l'Opera in Paris, on March 23, 2023. Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP

Protests against the government’s use of a special constitutional provision, known as article 49.3, to sweep aside parliamentary opposition to the reform have been angrier than anything seen over the past two months.

Since the article was used last Thursday, France – and especially Paris – has seen trouble flare nightly, with small groups of black-clad demonstrators smashing windows and setting fires.

Thursday, March 23rd saw another day of nationwide strikes and protests that ended in violent clashes in Paris, Bordeaux and Rennes. In Bordeaux a fire was lit at the town hall.

In total 457 people were arrested and 441 police officers injured, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

Unions, united in coordinating their protests, have called for a tenth strike day on Tuesday, March 28th, but many expressed fears they could lose control of the protests as more radical demonstrators set the tone.

“Yes, we are worried,” Cyril Chabanier, the head of the moderate CFTC union, told AFP.

Commentators have begun to wonder whether the hardening of fronts could herald the return of the Yellow Vests, a grassroots movement that started in 2018 as a protest against rising fuel prices.

It snowballed into the biggest social action against Macron in his first term, the protests often marked by clashes with security forces and damage to property.

“It’s a social law of physics,” said Jean-Marie Pernot, a political scientist specialising in trade unions.

“If you don’t respect any of the channels meant for the expression of dissent, it will find a way to express itself directly,” he told AFP.

Protesters in France

Protesters march through Paris during a demonstration against the government’s proposed pensions overhaul on March 15th, 2023. Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP

Early Yellow Vest action was marked by strikes, weekly demonstrations, the blocking of roads and fuel depots, and the worst clashes with riot police in decades.

The weekly Saturday protests continued for months before gradually fizzling out – losing momentum after Macron agreed to many of their demands.

‘Tougher action ahead’

“There may be tougher action ahead, more serious and further-reaching,” warned Fabrice Coudour, a leading energy sector representative for the hard-left CGT Union.

“It may well escape our collective decision-making,” he said.

The Yellow Vests prided themselves on having no designated leaders. They resisted attempts by left-wing politicians and unions to harness the movement’s energy for their own ends.

READ ALSO: ‘Two fingers to the French people’ – what the papers said about Macron’s pension decision

But one of their more prominent spokesmen was Jerome Rodrigues, who lost an eye to a police rubber bullet during clashes at one demo.

Within hours of Macron’s pensions move on Thursday, Rodrigues told an angry, cheering crowd outside the National Assembly that the objective was now nothing less than “the defeat” of the president.

At the same time, protests erupted in many parts of France, some demonstrators destroying street furniture, smashing windows and setting bins on fire. 

Those protests continued on a smaller scale through the week, before the serious violence on Thursday night.

Demonstrator in Lyon

A man holds a placard reading “who sows misery, sweeps away pieces of glass” as demonstrators clash with policemen in Lyon during protests against the government’s planned pensions reform. Photo by Jeff PACHOUD / AFP

The unions have already put the responsibility for any future trouble at the government’s doorstep.

READ ALSO: Calendar: The latest French pension strike dates to remember

“Obviously, when there is this much anger and so many French people on the streets, the more radical elements take the floor,” said Laurent Escure, boss of the UNSA trade union federation.

“This is not what we want, but it’s going to happen. And it will be entirely the government’s fault,” he told AFP.

For weeks, Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, has been warning the government that there could be more trouble if protesters got the idea that the Yellow Vests achieved more with violence than established unions with their recent, mostly peaceful, mass demonstrations.

“What is the democratic outlook for a country that fails to respond to 1.5 or 2 million people in the streets on three occasions, but that did respond to a violent movement with a fifth of that number in the street?” he asked in an interview last month.

Macron made a number of concessions to the Yellow Vest movement.

Among other measures, he scrapped a planned carbon tax and boosted salaries for minimum wage earners, for a total estimated cost to public finances of €10 billion.

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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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