Nearly 300 protesters were arrested on Tuesday after May Day riots in central Paris, where hooded youths torched a McDonald’s restaurant and several vehicles during a march against French President Emmanuel Macron’s public-sector reforms.
Shouting “Rise up, Paris” and “Everyone hates the police,” about 1,200 people in black jackets and masks joined the traditional May 1 union-led demonstration for workers’ rights, Paris police said.
After trying to hold up the march a group of protesters ran amok along the route, destroying a McDonald’s restaurant near Austerlitz station, east of the city center, and setting it ablaze.
Photo: AFP
They also torched vehicles at a car dealership, along with a mechanical digger and a scooter, leaving a trail of destruction and plumes of dark smoke billowing into the air.
The worst unrest in months in Paris comes at a time of heightened tensions over Macron’s reform of the public sector, and follows a showdown between police and anti-capitalist squatters at a sprawling commune in western France.
Paris police officers used tear gas and water cannon to disperse the demonstrators.
On Tuesday night, 102 people remained in custody out of 276 who were arrested, police said, adding: “31 businesses were damaged, of which two were burned, six vehicles were burned and 10 others damaged.”
Macron condemned the violence, posting on Twitter during his trip to Australia: “Everything will be done so that the perpetrators are identified and held responsible for their actions.”
He added that the demonstrations would be treated with “absolute firmness.”
EXTREMISTS
Police had warned of the risk of extremist groups using May Day to set up a rematch of the clashes seen during demonstrations last year over Macron’s labor reforms and at an anti-capitalist camp in western France that was demolished by police earlier this month.
“Macron makes us mad,” a banner held by one masked demonstrator read.
“We’re tired of this capitalist system that destroys everything and of brutal police repression of all those who oppose it,” said a 19-year-old student, who was part of the group.
The scenes of looting and destruction overshadowed the May Day march, which drew between 20,000 and 55,000 peaceful protesters, according to police and union estimates.
Nationwide, about 143,000 people took part in labor marches, according to government estimates, up slightly on last year.
REFORMS
Trade unions and students’ unions have been trying to rally the French against Macron’s shake-up of indebted state rail operator SNCF and access to public universities, which they see as part of a rollback of France’s cherished public service.
Polls show the French supporting those reforms, but being more critical of Macron’s fiscal policy, seen as favoring the wealthy over the working and middle classes.
“Macron is the president of the rich,” said Genevieve Durand, a retired public servant who took part in a march in the central city of Clermont-Ferrand, echoing a label that has clung to the centrist leader.
The energetic 40-year-old, who vowed during campaigning to make France more competitive, has insisted he will not budge from his course.
“I’m doing what I said I would,” Macron said during a television interview to mark the first anniversary of his election on Monday next week.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of