French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the Netherlands was again disrupted on Tuesday by two demonstrators who were arrested on his arrival at the University of Amsterdam, according to images filmed by a TV group and the Dutch police.
The two demonstrators, a man and a woman, were arrested for “disturbing public order and threatening” because they were “running towards the president”, declared with Agence France-Presse Lex van Liebergen, door -word of the Amsterdam police.
Images from the television group show the man stopped in his tracks and brutally tackled to the ground near the President of the Republic. “For the honor of the workers even if Macron does not want, we are here”, chanted one of the demonstrators before being tackled to the ground by the police.
“For the honor of the workers, even if Macron does not want to, we are here”, he had time to chant twice, one of which when he was taken away by force, resuming the song of anti-Macron protesters in France.
The incident happened just after the French president got out of a limo with Dutch King Willem-Alexander and was greeted by Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. One of the arrested protesters had a banner, Lex van Liebergen added.
About forty demonstrators were also waiting for Emmanuel Macron when he left university, waving two banners, including the same as the day before in The Hague claiming “President of violence and hypocrisy”, and placards.
The president, who faces a very strong challenge after the passage of the pension reform in France, had already been interrupted the day before during a speech on Europe in The Hague. He then replied that if democracy was synonymous with the right to demonstrate, it was also put “in danger” when the law is no longer respected.
His decision to use the “49.3” procedure, i.e. adoption of the text without a vote by engaging the responsibility of his government, revived mobilization in France in mid-March, with demonstrations punctuated with violence.
Emmanuel Macron visited the university’s quantum physics laboratory with the king, a promising technology intended to increase the computing power of computers.
In this field, the French start-up Pasqal, founded by the Nobel Prize in physics Alain Aspect, has merged with the Dutch Qu
The two governments will sign an “innovation pact” on Wednesday, with the key to cooperation in semiconductors, quantum physics and energy, all areas in which the European Union intends to strengthen its independence.
The French groups STMicroelectronics and Dutch ASML, two European heavyweights in semiconductors, already have joint projects. On the sidelines of the university visit, Emmanuel Macron spoke one-on-one with ASML CEO Peter Wennink.
The two governments are also working to finalize a defense agreement by 2024. The French Naval Group is in the running – along with the German ThyssenKrupp and the Swedish Kockums – for the delivery of four submarines to the Netherlands. Bas, a subject that could also be addressed by President Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The two men will give a press conference at 5:45 p.m., during which Macron will likely be questioned about the controversial remarks he made on Taiwan. In particular, he argued that Europe should not be “followers” of the United States or China.
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, accompanied by King and Queen Maxima, will then visit the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, before returning to Paris.
Consult our file: Pensions: the big bang
