At least 142 people they have been stopped so far in the capital where according to Tf1 almost 2,000 agents are busy maintaining order. In addition to Paris and Strasbourg, demonstrations took place in Dijon, where about 200 people demonstrated, some with their faces covered and hooded, shouting “we hate the police”. The demonstration was dispersed around 9pm and the police made two arrests. “Dozens of people were violently arrested. We demand an immediate end to the arrests,” protested the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
In Lyon, around 500 protesters, many of them young people, gathered at around 8.30pm on Place Guichard and attacked police by throwing objects, before dispersing into different groups in different neighbourhoods. An initial balance sheet of the prefecture reported two stops. Two stops in Saint-Etienne, while in Voiron, in Isère, according to the prefecture, the residence of the MoDem deputy Élodie Jacquier-Laforge was vandalised. There were also several hundred demonstrators in Lille in front of the prefecture, where they booed and booed when they learned of the rejection of the no-confidence motion. “He is about to explode”, they sang, “Louis XVI we beheaded him, Macron we will start again”.
Spontaneous and improvised marches continue to break into different districts of Paris shouting “The square is ours”, pursued by the police. Groups come running, set fire to dumpsters, damage shop windows and flee to other neighborhoods. The police try to control the situation by loading and firing tear gas.
Government save for 9 votes, anger explodes in France
Pension reform is law, Elisabeth Borne’s government is safeanger against Emmanuel Macron explodes in the streets in a few minutes: the majority of the country does not accept the parliamentary response that saved the government by just 9 votes and the hated reform that raises the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 .
“Now is the time to move on to popular distrust”, shouted the “leader” of the protest, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, urging the French not to give up and to continue the battle “with demonstrations, with strikes”.
The country risks a blockade, refineries are closing, students are ready to take to the streets, transport, sanitation, healthcare, all sectors are ready to do battle “until the reform is withdrawn”, as Mélenchon and everyone repeats trade unionists, more united than ever. If the French gather in the squares despite the bans – many are students, the elderly, peaceful people, even if small groups are fighting against the police – agitation can be seen from the halls of the Elysée. Nine votes may not be enough to secure the government of Elisabeth Borne, which could be sacrificed in the next few hours to allow for a change of leadership. In the evening, the prime minister announced – on her way to the Elysée for a meeting with the president – that she wanted to “continue” her path and reiterated that “pension reform is essential for the country”. From an institutional point of view, the left has already presented an appeal to the Constitutional Council for possible problems of legitimacy of the reform law. Furthermore, the left intends to undertake the difficult path of the so-called “shared initiative referendum”, a form of consultation launched in 2015 which envisages the initiative of a fifth of parliamentarians and a tenth of voters (which in the case of France would be about 4.5 million signatures, a goal that cannot be taken for granted).
On the political level, it is expected above all that Emmanuel Macron, hitherto reserved on the uphill path of his reform, finally take the floor to find harmony with the French. Analysts observe a “split country”, with a president who would like to “move on” after the pension reform but who appears more politically isolated than ever and at the lowest popularity point in (at 28%, as in the days of the “yellow vests” “). The much-awaited decisive day presented itself in a rather surreal parliamentary chamber, with Aurore Bergé, president of Macron’s Renaissance party, and Elisabeth Borne, defending themselves against the army of hostile explanations of vote from the left, from extreme right, and from the center of Liot, the party that presented the “transpartisan” motion of censure voted by 278 deputies, 9 fewer than the 287 that would have been needed for the no-confidence vote to pass. Not even the deputies of Renaissance supported the two representatives of the majority, who left their benches almost empty, as if not wanting to appear with their faces in the foreground in a moment of great unpopularity.
Whistles, shouts, fists banged on the benches, covered the words of Bergé and Borne as the applause accompanied the supporters of the motion. Then the result, a few votes less than the absolute majority of the Assemblée, with as many as 19 Républicains out of 61 who disobeyed the indication of the party leaders not to vote on the motions against the government. A little later, the result of 94 votes collected by Marine Le Pen with her motion, voted by her and 6 other deputies. In the square – in the district of les Invalides, not far from the Palais Bourbon, the seat of the Assemblée nationale – thousands of people poured out, most of them peaceful. Some immediately began the usual clashes with the police: throwing stones, charges, tear gas, burning bins full of rubbish due to the strike. They accepted the invitation of the trade unions and the opposition, “nothing changes with this vote”. And they don’t expect promises, words, adjustments from Macron. They are simply calling for the “withdrawal” of the pension reform. At the Elysée, the only decision taken at the moment seems to have been to sleep over one more night: Macron will receive Elisabeth Borne tomorrow morning, then tomorrow evening at 19.30 all the majority parliamentarians. The protesters wait, determined not to give up.
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