After five months of mobilisations against President Emmanuel Macron's reform of the pension system, which raises the legal age of retirement on full pension rights by two years to 64, the 14th day of trades union-organised demonstrations on Tuesday drew the lowest turnout since the protests began.
French fashion house Dior, part of the LVMH luxury goods group, has been accused of racism on Chinese social media and in the country's press for posting a photo on its Instagram account, which it subsequently removed, of an East Asian model pulling up a corner of her eye, captioned 'Channel your feline fierceness'.
Protest marches against President Emmanuel Macron's pensions system reforms were held across France on Thursday, with turnout ranging between 380,000 and 1.5 million according to the conflicting accounts of police and trades unions, ahead of a crucial ruling by France's Constitutional Council due on Friday on the legality of the legislation and opposition demands for a referendum over the issue.
Jean-Baptiste Reddé has hoisted his giant, colourful signs in nearly every street protest for over a decade, embodying France’s enduring passion for demonstrations, and in the current dispute over Emmanuel Macron's push to increase the retirement age on full pension rights in order to fund the system, he says taxing the country’s rich would be more effective.
Several people among both demonstrators and police were left in a critical condition, and others less seriously injured, after clashes at a march in open countryside in north-west France against the building of giant water basins for cereal farmers which protestors say is stealing water away from environmentally positive uses.
Commenting on the postponing of the state visit to France by King Charles because of the disruption of protests over over pension reforms, Peter Ricketts, British ambassador to France between 2012 and 2016, said the planned banquet in the palace of Versailles would have been a 'particularly bad idea', with 'all kinds of echoes from the past going back to the revolution'.
A ninth day of nationwide demonstrations in France on Thursday in protest at Emmanuel Macron's pension system reforms saw no drop in turnout on those held earlier this month, with trades unions claiming more than three million took part while police estimated just more than one million.
Strikes and demonstrations on Thursday against Emmanuel Macron's proposed reform of France's pensions system, which includes raising the age of retirement on full rights from 62 to 64 by 2030, brought more than 2 million people onto streets across France, according to trade unions, while interior ministry figures estimated turnout at 1.12 million.
There were skirmishes with police on Saturday as Kurdish protestors gathered in central Paris for a demonstration in protest at the killing of three people, and the wounding of several others, on Friday at a Kurd community centre, for which a 69-yeare-old former French train driver has been detained and placed in a psychiatric unit.
While there are hundreds of thousands of water reservoirs used by farmers across France, what has prompted angry protests by environmentalist activists, dismised as 'eco-terrorists' by France's interior minister, is the size of the latest ones and the source of the water they collect.
A union-led, nationwide day of strike action and street protests on Tuesday to push demands for better pay in face of rampant inflation drew a turnout of around 300,000 according to organisers - almost 120,000 according to the interior ministry -, including transport workers, teachers and postal staff, as developing social unrest over the cost-of-living crisis proves to be the first major challenge for Emmanuel Macron's second term in office.
French health workers have held a day of protest to demand better pay and increased resources, including higher staff numbers, as fears grow over the capacity of hospitals around the country, and notably A&E units, to cope with patient demand this summer.
Anti-French sentiment is gaining ground across a number of West African countries, where the presence of the former colonial power, engaged in fighting armed jihadist insurgents across the Sahel, is challenged by growing Russian influence and popular anger against its history of support for strongman regimes. Protests against France’s military presence in the region have now spilled over into Chad, France’s key African ally, governed by a junta, where last month French nationals were targeted in the capital N’Djamena and petrol stations belonging to oil giant Total were ransacked. Rémi Carayol reports.
More than 50 people were arrested and several hundred fined as a so-called 'freedom convoy' of vehicles reached Paris in protest over France's Covid-19 vaccine pass requirements for access to a number of public venues.
