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France has banned protests opposite parliament after a second night of unrest sparked by the government’s decision to impose an unpopular pension overhaul without a parliamentary vote.
Paris police banned protests on Saturday at Place de la Concorde, near the National Assembly parliament building, after two evenings of clashes between demonstrators and riot police.
It said it was doing so “due to serious risks of disturbances to public order”.
On Friday night, a fire was lit at the square and groups of people threw bottles and fireworks at security forces.
Police used teargas to try and clear the area. Sixty-one people were arrested, according to the police.
In the southeastern city of Lyon, demonstrators tried to break into a town hall and set fire to the building; 36 arrests were made.
However, peeaceful marches got underway in other parts of the country after unions called for a weekend of protests.
In the eastern town of Besancon, some 300 people gathered on Saturday morning, according to AFP news agency.
Nathalie, a woman in her thirties, threw her voter registration card into the fire.
“I elected my member of parliament but he’s been deprived of his right to vote. We’re in the middle of a denial of democracy.”
‘Denial of democracy’
France has seen eight days of nationwide protests and strike action since mid-January over a pension reform bill that would see the retirement age raised from 62 to 64 and an increase in the length of contributions.
The government says this is essential to ensure the pension system survives.
The unions do not agree, and polls show the vast majority of the French are also opposed.
While protests have been largely peaceful up to now, anger has boiled over after the government on Thursday triggered article 49.3 of the constitution to push the bill through without a parliamentary vote.
More than eight out of 10 people are unhappy with that decision, and 65 percent want strikes and protests to continue, a Toluna Harris Interactive poll for RTL radio showed.
Going ahead without a vote “is a denial of democracy … a total denial of what has been happening in the streets for several weeks”, said Nathalie Alquier, a 52-year-old psychologist in Paris. “It’s just unbearable.”
Continued mobilisation
The recent unrest is reminiscent of the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protests in late 2018 over high fuel prices, which forced President Macron into a partial U-turn on a carbon tax.
A broad alliance of all of France’s labour unions said they would continue their mobilisation and try to force a similar U-turn on the pension reform bill.
A ninth day of nationwide industrial action is scheduled for Thursday.
The capital’s municipal rubbish collectors have kept up a rolling strike, leaving an estimated 10,000 tonnes of trash festering in the streets of Paris. The Paris chief of police has ordered refuse collectors to be requisitioned after Paris’s mayor said it was up to the government to sort out the reasons for the industrial action.
A union representative on Saturday said that strikers would halt production at two incinerators outside paris would let some lorries through “to limit the risk of an epidemic”.
In the energy sector, the hard-left CGT union said strikers would halt production at two refineries by this weekend or Monday at the latest.
Some rail workers and air traffic controllers are also continuing strike action, leading to planes and trains being cancelled over the weekend and on Monday
Teachers’ unions called for strikes next week, which could disrupt the emblematic baccalaureate secondary school exams.
No confidence motions
Opposition lawmakers have filed two motions of no confidence in the government, to be debated in parliament on Monday.
They hope to garner enough support to topple the cabinet and repeal the pension reform law.
But while the PM may be fragilised, her cabinet is largely expected to survive the vote.
For it to pass, the no-confidence motion would need the backing of a majority of MPs (287) – that means half of the conservative Republicans (LR) that negotiated with the government on the final text.
While some have said they could break ranks, it looks unlikely that as many as half would vote alongside the hard left and far right parties, and against the government.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)