2023-05-01 14:52:10
Hundreds of thousands of French responded to calls from France’s biggest unions to take to the streets on International Labor Day to continue the fight for social justice, against pension reform, government policy and President Emmanuel Macron, who are taking decisions by governmental assumption, avoids dialogue with social partners, does not respect the promises made to the voters. President Macron is targeted in an increasingly pronounced manner, whose resignation is demanded at all demonstrations and at all his public appearances.
More than 300 protest actions have been announced for May 1 in localities throughout France, starting with Paris. On Monday, many of the protest demonstrations in various cities of the country started from 10.00 am. In Paris, the march started after 14.00, from the Place de la Republique in the direction of the Bastille. The first figures showed that the mobilization was much higher than the protest actions of the last months. “It is really one of the most powerful social actions taking place in France,” said the general secretary of the largest French union, the CGT, Sophie Binet, while her counterpart from another powerful union, the CFDT, Laurent Berger , boasted of a huge mobilization of his activists, not only in Paris, but throughout the country, to challenge further and with greater force the pension reform law adopted without a vote in parliament by the government and the country’s president. “We have a historic May 1st,” Berger declared at the start of the procession from Place de la Republique, where a huge sign was placed on the statue in the middle of it that read “Macron, resignation”. The demonstrators carried national flags, chanted slogans against government policy, against pension reform, against President Macron. Around 13,000 gendarmes and policemen were mobilized throughout France, of which 5,000 in Paris, and there are reports – confirmed in various cities – that among the peaceful demonstrators there are also groups of violent extremists. Information and video images of incidents between demonstrators and law enforcement arrived from Marseille, Nantes, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Havre, Brest, Lyon, Reims, Perpignan, Clermont-Ferrand, Saint Malo, Rouen, Bordeaux and others. Law enforcement has been given legal permission to use drones to monitor demonstrations in the country’s cities. As previously announced, air, rail and road transport were greatly reduced, strikes continued in various branches of activity on Monday, May 1.
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