Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across France on Monday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s policies. Riots broke out in several cities, in which at least 108 police officers were injured. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also reported that 291 protesters had been arrested.
According to union umbrella CGT, 2.3 million people demonstrated across the country, while 1 million had been hoped. In Paris alone, according to the CGT, 550,000 people showed up, a number the authorities were expecting roughly nationwide. The government has reached a total number of 782,000 protesters and 112,000 in Paris.
In Paris and Nantes, the police have launched tear gas and charges are underway. Protesters clashed with police. In Paris twenty policemen were injured and ninety arrests were made. Social media shows rubbish bins and cars being set on fire and shop windows and banks smashed in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse, among others.
“Violent Villains”
“Particularly in Paris, Lyon and Nantes, the police are facing extremely violent thugs who have come with one goal: to kill police officers and attack other people’s property,” Minister Darmanin tweeted. He said a police officer was seriously injured by a Molotov cocktail. According to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, the lion’s share of protesters behaved responsibly, which she says makes “the violent scenes even more unacceptable”.
Ensure
Labor Day on May 1 is a national holiday in France. In recent years, more than 100,000 French people have taken to the streets during demonstrations on this day. The retirement age was recently raised by two years to 64. The unions then called on people to take to the streets again en masse. The UN Human Rights Council said on Monday it was concerned about police brutality in France, Le Monde reports. Denmark and Norway, among others, have called on France to do more with allegations of excessive police violence during demonstrations.
Source: BNR
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