French police fired teargas and clashed with demonstrators in Paris and other cities on Monday after trade unions transformed their traditional Labour Day marches into anti-government demonstrations against the rise in retirement age from 62 to 64. This comes after sporadic unrest after Macron signed this bill a month ago.
At least 108 police were wounded and 291 people detained across France as violence erupted in several cities on the sidelines of the main union-led marches, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said. In Paris, 25 police were injured and 111 people were detained. One police officer suffered serious burns to his hands and face after being hit by a petrol bomb, he said.
Darmanin condemned protesters he described as being from the far-left, known as “black blocs”, saying they numbered around 2,000 in Paris and another 1,000 in the southeastern city of Lyon, reports The Guardian.
In Paris, the trade union-led demonstration began peacefully with many families joining in, holding banners calling for social justice and demanding Macron resign or withdraw his law to raise the minimum eligible pension age from 62 to 64. But on the edges of the march as it passed through Paris’s 11th arrondissement, police fired teargas and clashed with groups of young men dressed in black. Projectiles, bins and petrol bombs were thrown at police.
There was also unrest in Lyon, where several cars were set alight and the windows of some businesses were smashed. In Nantes, bins were piled up and set alight in front of an administration building, shop windows were smashed and police fired teargas after protesters threw projectiles. A demonstrator in Nantes was treated by paramedics for a serious injury to his hand.
In Marseille, a group of more than 100 demonstrators briefly occupied a luxury hotel near the old port before being pushed back by police. Teargas was also fired in Toulouse and Rennes.
Police had been given a last-minute go-ahead to use drones as a security measure after a Paris court rejected a petition from rights groups for them not to be used.
Unions had called for a big turnout on Monday and the demonstrations were larger than standard Labour Day marches, with hundreds of thousands attending about 300 demonstrations across France.
Marine Le Pen, whose far-right party now represents the most significant opposition in parliament, accused Macron of stoking tensions on May Day.
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