Macron's bid to raise retirement age approved by top court

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Carnage in France: Battles on the streets of Paris as riot police fire tear gas and charge at pension protesters after Macron's hated bid to raise retirement age is approved by top constitutional court

A top French court has passed Macron's controversial pension reforms in France

The pension age is set to increase by two years despite widespread opposition

French police are bracing for scenes of violence after widespread protests

By ELIZABETH HAIGH



PUBLISHED: 12:29 EDT, 14 April 2023 | UPDATED: 18:11 EDT, 14 April 2023


Carnage is erupting on the streets of France tonight after French President Emmanuel Macron's flagship pension reform passed a vital constitutional milestone despite months of disruptive strikes and protests.



The legislation, which pushes the age at one can draw a full pension to 64 from 62, is deeply unpopular in France and has triggered huge disruption.



After the decision was announced by the Constitutional Council on Friday, largescale protests began around the country and quickly turned violent - with 112 people arrested in Paris alone.



Police used tear gas in Lyon and Strasbourg and water cannons in Paris to control the streets, while protesters set fires, built barricades and let off flares in the centre of the capital.



Officers were seen charging down streets in cities across France as they battled protesters angry about the reforms. In Nantes, a police station was briefly set on fire by rioters before being extinguished.


Barricades made of metal boards, dustbins and fires have been hastily erected in Paris as police respond to protesters


Protesters are marching on the centre of Paris, with 3,000 people already assembled outside the town hall by 5pm BST, according to French media.



Demonstrations are taking place in major French cities including Paris, Rennes, Toulouse, Lyon and Nantes.



In Paris protesters have let off flares and set fire to bikes outside the town hall, triggering a significant response by police. Dustbins and other items have also been set on fire around the city.



Some have erected barricades in the streets of the capital, using sheets of metal, bins, wood and fire. A march is approaching the Place de la Bastille, where the infamous Bastille prison once stood.



Police have arrested some protesters, including around a dozen young people who were pictured being detained by officers with batons and tear gas.



In Nantes, bottles and other projectiles have been thrown at police by some protesters, causing the police to respond with water cannons. Protesters are attempting to disrupt major roads and tramways by creating lines of burning dustbins.



Shortly after 8pm BST, a Nantes police station was set aflame by protesters, with the entire entranceway alight, before a water cannon was used to extinguish the flames.

Full story with pictures and videos at link

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France Burns: Macron Signs Pension Reform into Law as Paris Riots




PARIS, FRANCE - APRIL 14: Demonstrators set a fire during a protest against the government after pushing the pensions reform without a vote using article 49.3 of the constitution, and surviving a no-confidence motion at the parliament, in Paris, France on April 14, 2023. (Photo by Firas Abdullah/Anadolu Agency via …Firas Abdullah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


PETER CADDLE
15 Apr 2023

French President Emmanuel Macron has signed his pension reform bill into law after riots once again broke out on the streets of Paris.



Controversial pension reforms drawn up by the French government have finally been signed into law by President Emmanuel Macron, despite riots breaking out in Paris and beyond on Thursday and Friday.



Protesters had been hoping that the country’s Constitutional Court would shoot the legislation down or force it to go to referendum, with many arguing that the nature of the bill breached the French constitution.



However, according to a report by Le Figaro, the legal body ruled that the vast majority of points contained in the law were indeed constitutional.



Judges instead only struck out a few far less controversial elements of the bill, some of which were even added in a desperate attempt to place the country’s opposition.



The Parisian public responded to the news with spontaneous protests, some of which reportedly devolved into rioting, with over 100 people being arrested by police in relation to unrest in the city.

Seemingly unperturbed by the violence, Marcon quickly proceeded to make the bill official, signing the reforms into law early on Saturday morning.

Despite the reforms now officially being the law of the land in France, trade unions in the country have vowed to keep opposing the legislation, seemingly convinced that they can still push for the changes to be withdrawn.



“It’s not over,” one of the major unions involved in the regular mass protests declared, the organisation claiming that pulling the legislation would be the only way for the government to “calm the anger” in France.



Such anger was perfectly visible on the streets of Paris on Friday, with protesters clashing with police and setting bins on fire in response to the Constitutional Court ruling the legislation to be compatible with French law.



Demonstrations against the decision also reportedly took place in Marseille, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes, Lille, Dijon, Caen, and Strasbourg.



The actions of protesters in Rennes drew particular ire, with footage emerging appearing to show a number of individuals piling up bins in front of an entrance to a historic monastery in the city, before setting them on fire.

“The degradations and attacks this evening in Rennes, against a police station and the Couvent des Jacobins (monastery), by thugs determined to fight it out are unacceptable,” French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin wrote online, expressing full support for the French police.



However, French law enforcement agencies also faced critisisms on Saturday morning, with multiple videos emerging online appearing to show officers trying to blind journalists with high-powered flashlights.

“Police officers dazzling several journalists for long minutes to disrupt the recording of images,” one journalist wrote online, adding such skullduggery from law enforcement against reporters in the country “often happens”.



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Marine Le Pen: Macron is a ‘Pyromaniac’ Who Set French Democracy on Fire


KURT ZINDULKA
15 Apr 2023

Former populist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has branded Emmanuel Macron as a “pyromaniac” who has set fire to French democracy after the globalist president signed his controversial pension reforms into law in the middle of the night.



Following a month of riots, protests, and labour union strikes across the nation, French President Emmanuel Macron signed into law his pension reforms — which would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64-years-old — after the Constitutional Council cleared the legislation on Friday.



In addition to angering the public on the merits of the legislation, which has been seen as an attack on the working class by the elitist Macron government during a time of economic crisis, the method in which it was implemented further enraged the public, given that it was pushed through the parliament after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne invoked a constitutional loophole to pass the bill without a vote last month.



In response to the decision by Macron to sign the contentious bill into law during the middle of the night, the leader of the National Rally (RN) in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen chastised her former rival for attacking French democracy.

“By choosing to enact the unjust pension law at 3:28 am, Emmanuel Macron is committing yet another provocation against the French,” the populist wrote on social media.



“A President of the Republic must bring the French together, but Emmanuel Macron is a pyromaniac who will, alas, have damaged our democracy.”



The widespread resentment against Macron, who has been branded as the “president of the rich” over his globalist style of governance, has seen Le Pen and her National Rally party surge in the polls, with a poll earlier this month finding that in a head to head presidential matchup, she would best Macron by a walloping 10 points, after previously losing to the World Economic Forum darling in last year’s elections.

Meanwhile, trust in Macron has fallen to its lowest level since the 2018 Yellow Vest protests against his plans to impose climate taxes on the public. Aside from the controversial pension reform, the French public has been suffering under economic hardship for years following the Chinese coronavirus crisis and the ensuing draconian lockdowns of Macron’s government.



As a result of the fallout from the Wuhan virus in conjunction with the war in Ukraine, France has seen food inflation soar by 15 per cent over the past year, leading to one in four of the nation’s poorest people beginning to skip meals to make ends meet.



In addition to Le Pen, François Ruffin, a leading member of the leftist La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly, also took aim at Macron for signing the legislation into law overnight.



“Like thieves, Emmanuel Macron and his gang promulgated their pension law in the middle of the night. Because they know it well: what they have just done is a democratic hold-up,” Ruffin wrote.



The trade unions, which have been a leading force in staging the nationwide protests, have also vowed to continue their actions despite the reforms being signed into law, with the CGT trade confederation saying in a statement: “The nocturnal promulgation of the law does not change our fight at all. We will not move on until this law is abandoned.”

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