Boos, consternation and anger greeted Friday the decision of the Constitutional Council to validate the essentials of the pension reform, during rallies throughout France which sometimes led to wild demonstrations interspersed with degradations.
“This decision will mark a milestone. I see that we are ultimately going towards the death of the Fifth Republic”, launches Jean-Marie, a 50-year-old teacher, on the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville in Paris. He says he oscillates “between determination and dismay”.
The decision of the Constitutional Council, which fell shortly before 6 p.m., was greeted there by boos from the demonstrators.
About 4,000 people had gathered there in the early evening at the call of several unions, including the CGT and FO, according to a police source. Several hundred young people had gone there earlier, after demonstrating from Saint-Lazare station.
“It’s outrageous. Where is the democracy?” says Béa, a 61-year-old librarian. Not far away, a forty-year-old says he is “too dejected” to react hotly. “Some say that the mobilization is weakening, I believe that it is becoming more radical,” said Raji Aletcheredji, 24, a Solidaires union member.
Several hundred people then left in wild processions through the streets of central Paris.
These were peppered with incidents and degradations and groups of demonstrators were sometimes surrounded by the police, noted AFP journalists.
At 10:30 p.m., the police headquarters had made 112 arrests. The prefect of police of Paris Laurent Nuñez spoke on BFMTV of “thirty garbage cans fired”.
In Rennes, several hundred people gathered in the center. “It’s a declaration of war,” reacted Fabrice Le Restif, secretary of the Ille-et-Vilaine FO departmental union. “We were spat in the mouth, we are not going to let it happen”.
In the early evening, the door of a police station was set on fire before the flames were extinguished after a few minutes after the intervention of a water cannon. Same scenario on one of the doors of the congress center located in the former Jacobin convent.
“The damage and attacks this evening in Rennes, against a police station and the Couvent des Jacobins, by thugs determined to fight it out are unacceptable,” said Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin on twitter.
Demonstrations and rallies were also organized in Lille, Dijon, Caen or Marseille.
In the Marseille city, around 200 people gathered in front of the prefecture. Then demonstrators invaded around 8:00 p.m. the tracks of Saint-Charles station, where train traffic was suspended until 10:30 p.m. before a gradual resumption of traffic.
“There I think everyone is a little revolted, disillusioned, disgusted because there we sit on democracy in fact”, reacted Marion, 35 years old.
In Strasbourg, an authorized static gathering brought together 600 to 700 people in the center. The decision of the Constitutional Council was initially welcomed in a manifestly resigned silence, before speaking out.
A wild demonstration was organized before ending after 9 p.m. The police used tear gas several times.
In Toulouse where 2,300 people had gathered in the afternoon for a demonstration, according to the prefecture, a few hundred people gathered at Place du Capitole around 6:00 p.m.
In Bordeaux, after a gathering of around 400 people, some of them demonstrated from 8:00 p.m., including a good part of radical demonstrators who caused damage? Burnt trash cans, broken bus shelters, smashed bank windows? and threw projectiles at law enforcement. They responded with tear gas.
Demonstrations took place in other cities in the region such as Poitiers or Pau.
In Dijon, braving the freezing rain, and confined to a central square by a large police force, some 200 people sang songs.
In Lyon, 300 to 400 people, according to the prefecture, were on the move in the center at the start of the evening, scattered in small groups in the small streets but repelled by tear gas, noted an AFP journalist.
In Grenoble, some 200 people were in wild demonstration in the streets in the early evening, the police pushing them back several times.
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04/15/2023 09:10:24 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
