By Ingrid Melander
PARIS, March 28 (Reuters) – France faces a new day of strikes and protests across the country on Tuesday, after some of the worst street violence in years took place last week.
Protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to push the retirement age back by two years, to 64, have so far been peaceful.
However, outrage has been mounting since the government passed the bill through parliament without a vote in mid-March, with polls showing Macron’s perceived disdain for voters, as well as images of violence police, things got worse.
In the last day of nationwide protests on Thursday, “Black Bloc” anarchists smashed shop windows, toppled bus shelters and looted a McDonald’s restaurant in Paris, with similar violence in other cities.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin warned on Monday that there was “a very serious risk” of new acts of violence on Tuesday, in the capital and outside it. Some 13,000 police officers will be assigned to the rallies, slightly less than half of them in Paris.
Violent groups of the extreme left, some of them coming from abroad, want to “set France on fire,” he declared at a press conference.
The police have advised the owners of the shops located in the route of the protest demonstration in Paris to close for the whole day.
Human rights groups and international organizations have denounced excessive use of force by the police in recent protests.
As in the previous strike days since mid-January, trains and flights will be disrupted and some schools will remain closed, while strikes will continue to affect the energy sector.
On Monday, at least six of France’s seven refineries were closed or operating at reduced capacity and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals were locked.
The Government affirms that the reform of the pensions is vital to guarantee that the system does not go bankrupt. Unions and protesters say there are other ways to do it.
The unions have asked Macron to withdraw or suspend the bill — approved but not yet published, pending a review by the Constitutional Council — to calm things down.
Macron responded that he is more than willing to talk to the unions, but on other issues.
(Writing: Ingrid Melander; Editing: Angus MacSwan, edited in Spanish by José Muñoz)
