On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people marched in a new round of nationwide strikes and protests in a bid to force President Emmanuel Macron to backtrack on pension reform, France 24 reported.
Stops destroyed, smoke bombs inside the bank
According to a note from the French National Police, consulted by franceinfo, the authorities expected Thursday “370 actions” throughout the territory, warning against “the risk of 300 to 600 yellow vests in Paris” and ” 500 to 1,000 radical elements”.
However, judging by the local media, there were many more of them and the clashes and attacks on the police became more violent. The CGT (“General Confederation of Trade Unions”) union announced that there were 400,000 demonstrators in Paris against 450,000 last week. The prefectural figures must be revealed at the end of the day.
On Place Danfert-Rochereau in Paris, radicals destroyed several bus stops. This happened at the end of the demonstration in the French capital, according to Le Figaro. The French police during the demonstrations faced several hundred “radical elements”.
The Crédit Agricole bank was attacked by demonstrators during the passage of a Parisian procession at the level of the place of Denfert-Rochereau. Windows were smashed and smoke bombs were thrown inside the bank. The demonstrators managed to enter the premises of the financial institution. The police responded with tear gas.
According to the police headquarters, during the Parisian demonstration at 5:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. Moscow time) 20 people were arrested. A total of 1330 checks were carried out before the start of the event. On Thursday, clashes were reported between protesters and law enforcement in various French cities, including Nantes and Rennes.
“Men in Black” in Montparnasse
Tensions between protesters and law enforcement erupted near the iconic La Rotonde (“Rotonde”) beer garden on Boulevard Montparnasse in Paris, around which rubbish fires and the famous red awning caught fire . The firefighters intervened, they managed to quickly deal with the fire which engulfed the tent.
The Paris police headquarters warned that on Boulevard Montparnasse, at the corner of Rue Vavin, was a group of radicals dressed in black. They fired projectiles at La Rotonde, one of Macron’s favorite restaurants, where he celebrated his 2017 presidential victory and goes there from time to time. The establishment was attacked by 300 people, police told BFMTV. The interwar meeting place of famous artists and writers loved by Hemingway and Remarque, La Rotonde was previously vandalized during the 2020 Yellow Vests protest.
They call themselves Black Bloc activists, they come hooded, most of them with glasses, all in black so that the police won’t recognize them. The student, involved in the movement since the beginning of the demonstrations against the pension reform, explained to Figaro: “We orient ourselves, in the end we discover who is who, even if we find ourselves in a demonstration. We are an independent and anti-capitalist collective. We are not against small traders, but what we have a problem with is everything that concerns big capital.” There are about fifty people in his cell, including girls.
Macron quickly loses confidence in the country
The strikes are taking place amid deadlocked negotiations between the unions and the government. On Wednesday, union representatives met with French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born. They called this meeting a “failure”. President Emmanuel Macron is on a state visit to China until Saturday. His office denied any responsibility for the breakdown of the talks and blamed the unions, particularly the moderate CFDT, which he said “did not want to compromise” with the government.
In the meantime, according to a new L’Opinion poll direct from the Elabe Institute for BFMTV on France and the political climate, if the second round of the 2022 presidential election were to be repeated today, the candidate of the National Rally of Marine Le Pen would have a clear lead over Emmanuel Macron.
The popularity rating of the President of France is at an all-time low. What the government feared is also confirmed by a sociological survey. The former president of the “National Association” is the only one who took advantage of the situation of political chaos and profited from it. If the second round had taken place today, Marine Le Pen would have beaten Emmanuel Macron with 55% of the vote against 45 for the current head of state.
Only seven out of ten Macron voters in the second round of 2022 would vote for him again in the event of a duel with Marine Le Pen. Two in ten would abstain and one in ten would change their mind and vote for their opponent.
