The police intervened Thursday, March 16, in the evening, on the Place de la Concorde, in the heart of Paris, and dispersed the thousands of demonstrators hostile to the pension reform who had gathered there in the afternoon. According to the prefecture of police (PP), the police went into action, in particular with water cannons, after an attempt to degrade the Obelisk site, in the center of the square. At 10 p.m., 120 people had been arrested, in particular for participating in a group to commit damage, added the PP.
Several charges and tear gas jets first drove the demonstrators away from the bridge leading to the National Assembly, then gradually evacuated them. The crowd was chased towards the rue de Rivoli, the Hôtel de la Marine and the entrance to the Tuileries Garden. On one of the palisades, someone wrote “the shadow of the guillotine is coming”. The crowd chanted “And everyone hates the police” and “Acab” (all cops are bastard). Out of sight, some try to recover cobblestones to make projectiles.
Several fire starts
The firefighters intervened to put out several fires on the Obelisk site, in particular on planks and an excavator. “Several outbreaks of fire” were also reported in the surrounding streets, including garbage cans or burned street furniture, said the police headquarters.
The first demonstrators had gathered in the square in the middle of the afternoon, at the call of the Solidaires union, when the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, had just announced to the deputies that she was taking responsibility for his government to pass his contested reform by making use of 49.3.
According to a police source, a few thousand “angry” or “rebellious” demonstrators were on Thursday afternoon at Place de la Concorde to protest against 49.3. More than a thousand young people had joined them. Signs read: “He who sows misery reaps wrath” or “Spring is coming… And the month of May”. Representatives of several youth organizations, student unions (Alternative), and political organizations (Young Rebellious, Young Ecologists, NPA Young), at the initiative of this demonstration, were present. They were joined by workers: railroad workers and refiners in particular. Other gatherings were organized in France, such as in Grenoble, Toulouse, Lyon, Lille or Bordeaux.
