Police fired tear gas and battled violent black-clad anarchists France on Thursday, more than a million mostly peaceful protesters marched against the president Emmanuel Macronplan to raise the retirement age.
On a ninth day of nationwide protests, rail and air travel was disrupted, while teachers were one of many professions to lose their jobs just days after the government passed legislation to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.
Police fired tear gas at protesters in cities including Nantes and Bordeaux in the west, and used water cannons against others in Rennes in the northwest.
People stand next to the gate of Bordeaux’s town hall after it was set on fire by protesters on Thursday after a demonstration
/ AFP via Getty ImagesIn Bordeaux, photos showed the city’s town hall on Thursday night. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the fire, which was quickly brought under control.
In the western city of Lorient, the Ouest-France newspaper said projectiles caused a brief fire in the garden of a police station.
Demonstrations in the center Paris Attended by 119,000 were generally peaceful, but smaller groups of “Black Bloc” anarchists smashed shop windows, smashed street furniture and ransacked a McDonalds restaurant. Clashes ensued as riot police moved in and drove the anarchists back with tear gas and stun grenades.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 123 police officers were injured and 80 people arrested across the country.
Small groups continued to clash with police in Paris into the evening, setting rubbish bins on fire and playing cat-and-mouse with security forces.
Unions fear protests could become more violent if the government fails to address growing popular anger over pension cuts.
Protesters run in smoke from tear gas next to a street fire on the sidelines of a demonstration in Toulouse, southern France, on Thursday
/ AFP via Getty ImagesUnions called for regional action over the weekend and new nationwide strikes and protests on March 28. the day King Charles III was to travel by train from Paris to Bordeaux.
“This is a response to the president’s falsehoods and his incomprehensible stubbornness,” said Marylise Leon, deputy secretary general of the CFDT union.
“The responsibility for this explosive situation does not lie with the unions, but with the government.”
The leader of the hardline CGT union, Philippe Martinez, said at the start of a meeting in Paris: “There is a lot of anger, an explosive situation.”
Union leaders called for calm but were angry at what they called Macron’s “provocative” remarks.
Macron broke weeks of silence on the new policy on Wednesday, saying he would stand firm and the law would take effect by the end of the year. He compared the protests to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Opinion polls have long shown that a majority of voters oppose the legislation. Opponents were further angered last week when the government rammed pension changes through parliament without a vote.
Many slogans and banners targeted the president, who evaded reporters as he arrived in Brussels for a summit of European Union leaders.
French CRS riot police arrest a protester during clashes during a demonstration in Paris
/ REUTERSFrance’s interior ministry said 1,089 million protested nationwide, including 119,000 in the capital, a record since protests began in January. The CGT union said 3.5 million people marched in the country, equaling an earlier peak on March 7.
“I came here because I am against this reform and I am really against the fact that democracy means nothing anymore,” Sophie Mendy, an administrative medical officer, told Reuters at the Paris rally. “We are not represented, and so we are fed up.”