Protests persecute Macron after approving the controversial pension reform

After approving the controversial pension reform in France, the French president, Emmanuel Macronembarked on a mission to travel the country to promote reconciliation and reconnect with the citizenry. But if the promulgation of the law was preceded by months of numerous mobilizations and protests, they do not stop.

protest demonstrations, boos and even egg throwing follow French President Emmanuel Macron, out of paris. After the difficult passage through Alsace (northeast) on Wednesday, Macron traveled to the department of Hérault (southeast) on Thursday with an agenda focused on education and accompanied by the minister of that portfolio, Pap Ndiaye.

The security measures increased to control the passage of protesters and the prefecture (government delegation) of Hérault even went so far as to prohibit “the use of portable sound devices” – without adding precise details about the nature of these items – or that “emanate from unauthorized vehicles”.

That measure was imposed after opponents of the pension reform have been calling pots and pans to express their discontent. The noise, the booing and the shouts of “Macron resignation” had already marked the day before in Alsacein the president’s first contact with the French since the approval of the controversial delay of the minimum retirement.

This Thursday, the small town of Ganges, where he was received by local authorities and visited an educational center, Macron assured that It is normal for “anger to express itself” and that he did not expect anything else, but that will not “prevent” him from continuing to travel through France.

The president said he was open to talking to people, “but if they’re just willing to throw things or make noise, it’s not worth it.” “Eggs and pans are for cooking,” Sébastien Rome, from the leftist formation La France Insumisa (LFI), told MP, who invited him to go out and talk to the Ganges protesters.

According to local media, the hundreds of protesters who gathered in the center of that town had thrown eggs and potatoes and there was also a power cut at the secondary school that Macron was visiting, which was claimed by members of the CGT union. local.

Parallel to the visit there were also mobilizations in other parts of France and at the headquarters of the Euronext company, which manages the Stock Exchange, in the Parisian business district of La Défense, hundreds of protesters took the company’s entrance by surprise to protest against the pension reform.

Last Monday, in a televised speech, Macron realized 100 days to “appease” discontent and promote a new “social pact” after three months of social and political crisis. Within this framework, he mentioned reindustrialization, ecological planning, education and health among the main objectives of a series of reforms that the Government will undertake in that period, in which it also wants to restore dialogue with the unions, something to which these, for the moment are denied.

With the pension reform already approved and validated by the Constitutional Council, the next big protest is scheduled for May 1.