LAST UPDATE | 24 Mar 2023

A PLANNED VISIT by Britain’s King Charles to France has been postponed amid violent protests in the country over President Emmanuel Macron’s pensions reform.

King Charles was due to make the visit across the English Channel next week the first international trip of his reign but French unions had called for new nationwide strikes and protests to coincide with the trip. 

In a statement, Buckingham Palace said, “the King and Queen Consort greatly look forward to the opportunity to visit France as soon as dates can be found.”

In total, there were 457 people were arrested and 441 security forces injured yesterday during the protests. 

More than 1 million people demonstrated against unpopular pension reforms, with violence erupting in some places.

The French Interior Ministry said a march in Paris — marred by violence, as were numerous marches elsewhere — drew 119,000 people, which was a record for the capital during the pension protests.

Polls say most French oppose president Macron’s Bill to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, which he says is necessary to keep the system afloat.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, speaking to the CNews channel this morning, said that there had been 903 fires lit in the streets of Paris.

“There were a lot of demonstrations and some of them turned violent, notably in Paris,” Darmanin said.

Police had warned that anarchist groups were expected to infiltrate the Paris march and young men wearing hoods and facemasks were seen smashing windows and setting fire to uncollected rubbish in the latter stages of the demonstration.

Darmanin, a rightwing hardliner in Macron’s centrist government, dismissed calls from protesters to withdraw the pensions reform which cleared parliament last week in controversial circumstances.

“I don’t think we should withdraw this law because of violence,” he said. “If so, that means there’s no state. We should accept a democratic, social debate, but not a violent debate.”

Elsewhere yesterday, the entrance to Bordeaux city hall was set on fire during clashes in the southwestern wine-exporting hub.

“I have difficulty in understanding and accepting this sort of vandalism,” the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, told RTL radio this morning.

“Why would you make a target of our communal building, of all people of Bordeaux? I can only condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

King Charles is set to visit the southwestern city next Tuesday and had been expected to visit the city hall and meet with Hurmic.

In a statement, the eight unions organising protests said in a statement that while Macron “tries to turn the page”, the movement “confirms the determination of the world of workers and youth to obtain the withdrawal of the reform”.

It called for localised action this weekend and new nationwide strikes and protests on Tuesday. Strikes upended travel as protesters blockaded train stations, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, refineries and ports.

In Paris, street battles between police and black-clad, masked groups who attacked at least two fast food restaurants, a supermarket and a bank reflected intensifying violence and drew attention away from the tens of thousands of peaceful marchers.

Police, pelted by Molotov cocktails, objects and fireworks, charged multiple times and used tear gas to disperse rioters. A haze of tear gas fumes covered part of the Place de l’Opera, where demonstrators converged at the march’s end.

Violence marred other marches, notably in the western cities of Nantes, Rennes and Lorient — where an administrative building was attacked and the courtyard of the police station was set alight and its windows broken — and in Lyon, in the southeast.

Thursday’s nationwide protests were the ninth union-organised demonstrations since January, when opponents still hoped that parliament would reject Mr Macron’s measure to raise the retirement age. But the government forced it through using a special constitutional measure.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Macron refused to budge from his position that a new law is necessary to keep retirement coffers funded.

Opponents proposed other solutions, including higher taxes on the wealthy or companies, which Mr Macron says would hurt the economy. He insisted the government’s bill to raise the retirement age must be implemented by the end of the year.

The Constitutional Council must now approve the measure.

High-speed and regional trains, the Paris metro and public transportation systems in other major cities were disrupted. About 30% of flights at Paris Orly Airport were cancelled.

The Eiffel Tower and the Versailles Palace, where the British monarch is to dine with Mr Macron, were closed on Thursday due to the strikes.

Violence, a recurring issue at protests, has intensified in recent days. Mr Darmanin said that 12,000 security forces were in the French streets on Thursday, with 5,000 in Paris.

The Education Ministry said in a statement that about 24% of teachers walked off the job in primary and middle schools on Thursday, and 15% in high schools.

At Paris’ Gare de Lyon train station, several hundred strikers walked on railway tracks to prevent trains from moving, brandishing flares and chanting “and we will go, and we will go until withdrawal” and “Macron, go away”.

Additional reporting by AFP