Water cannons and downtown drowned in tear gas in Rennes (west), degradation and clashes in Paris: the demonstrations against the highly contested pension reform experienced a resurgence of tensions in several cities in France on Thursday.
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Sporadic since the start of the mobilization on January 19, the violence has resurfaced sometimes spectacularly, once again monopolizing the antenna of television channels and reviving memories of the popular movement of “yellow vests” in 2018/2019.
According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, 123 gendarmes and police officers were injured during the incidents and more than 80 people arrested.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne judged Thursday evening “unacceptable” the “violence and degradation” in these demonstrations.
“Demonstrating and making disagreements heard is a right. The violence and degradation we have witnessed today is unacceptable,” she wrote on Twitter.
In Paris, where the police headquarters counted “about a thousand” radical elements, in the west and north of the country, or in Toulouse (south), this 9th day of inter-union mobilization drew a map of France tensions, which does not include the Mediterranean rim and in particular Marseille, whose record mobilization according to the unions (280,000) contrasts with the figures of the prefecture (16,000).
In Paris, violence erupted at the head of the demonstration with its share of smashed windows and destroyed street furniture. Contrary to a procession where the vast majority of demonstrators marched peacefully.
Throughout the parade, people dressed in black and equipped with masks and glasses degraded several convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and banks, according to AFP journalists.
Incidents were still ongoing in the early evening, including trash cans and newsstands set on fire.
“Scenes of Chaos”
In Rouen (north-west), a demonstrator in her thirties, who works with disabled children, had a thumb torn off according to a member of the radical left, Alma Dufour, who questions the use of a disencirclement grenade by the police.
In Nantes, demonstrators broke into the administrative court, ransacking the reception and breaking windows and doors. Several businesses were damaged.
In Lorient, the police station and the police were targeted by demonstrators, mostly young people with hidden faces. The building’s windows were smashed by projectiles.
In Rennes, the day after a day of hours between fishermen and law enforcement, tear gas canisters fired in response to the throwing of projectiles and trash fires, plunging the procession of the inter-union, caught in a vice , in a thick cloud of acrid smoke. Mayor Nathalie Appéré was moved by “scenes of chaos”.
The Minister of the Interior denounced “unacceptable attacks”. Faced with the rise of radicalization, he announced the mobilization of 12,000 police and gendarmes on Thursday, including 5,000 in Paris.
“It has been more tense since the wild demonstrations, since Friday. Before, the procession passed, it was calm. But there for a few days, there are garbage cans burning, tear gas. The demonstrators are on their toes, the police too, and there are more of them too, ”testified a merchant from Strasbourg (east) preferring to remain anonymous.
Until then more timid – as the subject of pensions may seem far from their concerns – the mobilization of young people has strengthened over the past week. The reasons for this development? The use of 49.3 which allowed the adoption of the reform without a vote, the images of police violence or the last speeches of President Emmanuel Macron, who considered that the “crowd” had “no legitimacy” in the face of the people represented by their elected representatives, according to the testimonies collected in the processions.
Shortly before the start of the Paris demonstration, the general secretary of the moderate CFDT union Laurent Berger had called for “non-violence”. His CGT counterpart Philippe Martinez had estimated for his part that Emmanuel Macron had “thrown a can of gasoline on the fire”, recalling that the unions had written to him to alert him to the “explosive situation” of the country.
The incidents were denounced by the right, like the president of the Republicans party Eric Ciotti castigating “thugs (who) want terror”.
Conversely, the left underlined the scale of the social mobilization, “the greatest since May 1968” for the leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.