Anger persists in France's pensions standoff as protesters strike on
France was gripped by an 11th day of strikes and protests against pension reform on Thursday, with air traffic disrupted at Paris's main airport and walkouts hitting the public transport, education, health and energy sectors.
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Demonstrators again marched by the thousands in cities across the country as unions demand the complete withdrawal of a law to raise the retirement age to 64.
The hardline CGT union estimates that 400,000 people joined the Paris demonstration. The Interior Ministry puts the figure at only 57,000. Nationwide, the Unions put the number of demonstrators at 2 million while the ministry counted 570,000.
Police fired clouds of teargas at the protests in Paris, where at least eight people were arrested during the start of the march.
Security forces said they had carried out checks on more than 1,330 people to prevent violence-prone groups, such as the anarchist movement Black Bloc, from infiltrating the march.
Sting-ball grenades were reportedly fired near La Rotonde restaurant, where Macron celebrated after qualifying for the second round of the 2017 presidential election.
Earlier Thursday striking railway workers stormed the former Paris headquarters of the Credit Lyonnais bank, which is now home to companies including the BlackRock investment firm, setting off smoke flares.
A protester told Reuters the building was targeted because of its private pension fund activity.
Meanwhile rat catchers threw the bodies of dead rodents at the Paris City Hall.
Increasingly violent
Protests have increased in violence after the government last month used constitutional powers to bypass a parliamentary vote and force the reform bill through the National Assembly.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin on Wednesday hit back at claims that police were too tough on protesters, telling a parliamentary committee that ultra-left groups were to blame for clashes.
Darmanin, who is France’s chief of police, denied accusations from leftwing opposition MPs that police and gendarmes were guilty of a disproportionate use of force.
“Protests and policing are not the problem. The problem is the urban guerrillas, the urban violence,” he said, adding that anti-pension reform protests on 16 and 23 March in particular had seen a strong surge of ultra-left groups seeking to infiltrate the movement.
“If I were provocative, I would say they wanted to take the movement hostage,” Darmanin said.
Thursday's strikes also come amid a deadlock in discussions between unions and the government, after bosses met with Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne for discussions that unions branded "a failure".
Unions called for for new strikes and protests on April 13, one day before France's Constitutional Court decides on the legality of the government's proposed pension reforms.
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