Striking workers in France are refusing to provide red carpets for King Charles’s first overseas trip as monarch amid protests over rises to the pension age, reports The Guardian.
French trade union CGT announced this week that its members at Mobilier National, the institution in charge of providing flags, red carpets and furniture for public buildings, would not help prepare a reception for the king upon his arrival in Paris on Sunday.
“We ask our administration to inform the services concerned that we will not provide furnishings, red carpets or flags,” a CGT statement read.
The Elysée Palace, the French president’s official residence, has said non-striking workers would set up the necessary accoutrements for the trip.
The king is scheduled to undertake the trip beginning on Sunday as the UK and France make efforts to rebuild ties that were frayed by Brexit, though anger over Emmanuel Macron forcing through a raise in the pension age to 64 without a parliamentary vote, for which he has been accused of behaving like a king, is clouding what was meant to be a show of friendship between the two countries.
“It’s very bad timing. Normally the French would welcome a British king. But in this moment, people protesting are on high alert for any sign of privilege and wealth,” said Paris-based writer Stephen Clarke, the author of Elizabeth II, Queen of Laughs.
“They’re planning on going to Versailles. It does not look good. This seems very 1789.”
Months in the making, Charles’s 26-29 March trip with Camilla, the Queen Consort, includes a visit to the Musée d’Orsay, a wreath-laying ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and a lavish dinner at the former royal residence Versailles – a symbol of royal excess before the French Revolution.
See more of this Associated Press report published by The Guardian.