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THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE have demonstrated in central Paris amid a heavy police presence to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping reforms, a year after he came to office.
Some 2,000 security forces including riot police were deployed as marchers gathered from midday in warm early summer sunshine in the central Opera square for a protest dubbed a “Party for Macron”, a tongue-in-cheek “celebration” of the 40-year-old centrist’s first anniversary in power.
Smaller rallies took place in the southern cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux while the Paris variant kicked off with a mass picnic which drew numerous families.
Organisers had urged participants to attend in a party mood – but the high security owed much to hundreds of black-clad youths having torched cars and a McDonald’s restaurant during traditional 1 May demonstrations in the capital, prompting fears that more “black bloc” protesters could hijack today’s event.
One protester held aloft a placard with the words ‘Mac-ron is disgusting’, a play on words to show his feelings about the president and the fast food chain.
Organisers insisted the march from Opera to the Bastille area, east of the city centre, would be “joyful and festive”.
‘Worried about violence’
But government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had expressed fears yesterday that the demonstration could turn violent.
He noted that the protest’s name, the “Fete a Macron”, can have a double meaning in French – either celebrating someone, or trying to do them harm.
“We are worried that there could be violence, and so we’re reinforcing security measures,” Griveaux said, adding the police role was to ensure peaceful demonstrations could go ahead.
Some supporters of the left-wing populist La France Insoumise party (LFI) brandished anti-Macron banners with slogans including “down with the president of the rich”, “no to a social coup d’etat”, and “for a Sixth Republic.”
The protest is the latest in a series of large street demonstrations against Macron, whose overhauls of everything from the education system to the state rail operator have been causing friction with various groups.
‘Democracy does not mean shutting up’
The demonstration was organised by firebrand LFI lawmaker Francois Ruffin and other ex-members of the Nuit Debout (Up All Night) leftist movement that staged nocturnal rallies across France in 2016.
Ruffin told AFP this week that Macron may have won a democratic election last May but “democracy does not mean shutting up for five years”.
“People have the right to challenge him,” said Ruffin, a journalist whose documentary “Merci Patron”, about a poor couple who take on France’s richest man, captured an angry zeitgeist and filled cinemas in 2015.
Numerous university faculties meanwhile remain blocked by protests against Macron’s plans to make university access more selective, causing major disruption to students starting their summer exams.
And yesterday marked the latest in a series of rail strikes as train drivers and other staff object to Macron’s overhaul of the SNCF, aimed at reducing its massive debts and making it more competitive.
Many French leftists have called for Macron’s opponents, from students to striking rail workers, to join forces in a re-run of the massive May 1968 protest movement that shook France exactly half a century ago.
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Dole should have been halved
@patw5675@gmail.com: around 28.8 k people on it long term costing around €6.6 million A WEEK!!!!
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: That’s money well spent on the less well of in our country, and come from me a person who has worked for over 52 years and never looked for anything from the state.
@patw5675@gmail.com: Did you buy that phone especially for the journal??
@Vince Cable: The Galaxy A02s
@patw5675@gmail.com: universal basic income would decline aschame as child’s powerty in rich country….
@Jimmy Kiely:any farmers milking dole too…
@another one? what’s going on is the semi state sec: what about all frends helping frends zilionis…
@Jimmy Kiely: it’s called job SEEKERS allowance!!!
@patw5675@gmail.com: Jasus
@patw5675@gmail.com: i find myself on the dole now for the first time in 43yrs, and you blatantly want it halved, very cavalier.
@patw5675@gmail.com: Why?
No excuse not to have a job if you’re able bodied in Ireland. Any amount of work available. Whole system needs to be restructured.
@CODE 29: any decent living on jobs….
@CODE 29: should be but this is a handout Ireland
@CODE 29: in 46, lost my job after 20 years… I’m struggling to find a job that will support my 2 kids. I’m able bodied and willing. It’s not so simple out there. I’ve to go back to collage at 46 or take a job stacking shelves again
Harris is not for me.. They are trying to buy votes without any shadow of a doubt, and hopefully the good people of Ireland will not fall for it!
And as for the send me an email remark… he’s too busy shaking hands to have anytime whatsoever for reading and replying to emails.
@Neil Harvey: silly comment
@Neil Harvey: Who are you for? The party that promises a house for everyone in the audience. There are always a lot of posts complaining that the Journal is biased in favour of the government parties. Comments not open on the latest scandal besetting SF. Not even a comment on her “ lessons to be learned “ comment.
@Vincent Alexander: same thing Fine Fail and Fine Gael said when one of their councillors sexually assaulted a woman and the latter for sexually assaulting an 8 year old child. All wires from the same brush
@Mr Inbetween: FF and FG don’t make a career of taking the high moral stand in the Dáil like Ms Donald and Mr Doherty.
@Mr Inbetween: What the Catholic Church did was horrendous, but what has to do with SF giving references to a sex offender?
Typical ohh, look over there, and Mary, lou trying to deflect in the Dail today. I presume you are delighted that the references were given and that nobody informed the BHF of the accusations?
There is more to this to come out so I wouldn’t be so sure that certain people didn’t know what actually went on.
@Vincent Alexander: did the ceann comhairle have anything to say?
@Neil Harvey: the cost of living crisis is a myth, all airports have increased passenger traffic. Etc
@Sheila McNulty: that was a great comment
@Vincent Alexander:
Shin Fein shooting themselfs in the foot more times then a 1950s border compane.
@Vincent Alexander: I’m for the best person for the job. I dont give a hoot about the colour of the rosette.
I think its OK to say that Harris is not my cup of tea!
@Vincent Alexander: Give over, they’re worse by far. Their principles and values, if you could call them such, change with the wind. Condemning Israel out of one side of their mouths and refusing to sign the occupied territories bill with the other. Not a shred of integrity between FFFG
It’s definitely an attempt at bribery to swing an election, because if as Simon Harris claims his actions are prompted by listening to what people want, he would have started building social housing across the country on week one of his role as Taoiseach.
Affordable housing and the lack thereof, is without doubt the number one concern across the entire country and it’s also the thing that the government as a whole and Simon Harris in particular as Taoiseach is blatantly ignoring.
@Dvsespaña: Exactly if he listened to the people USC would be gone having been originally told it was temporary. This government and the previous government have done nothing about social housing knowing the damage it was doing to thousands of people and put vulture funds ahead of families. Have they listened to the people in regards to the children’s hospital of the cost and location? This budget is like sticking a plaster over an open wound. It will come back to haunt them.
Just emailed him asking for more.
@Vince Cable: time for him to go
@Alan Moloney: They call that nonsense “leadership”. School yard kids wouldn’t behave like them. No wonder everything is broken. When you have wasters in suits believing they are doing the right thing when in fact they haven’t a bloody clue what they are doing, then the country will go nowhere. They actually pay advisors to tell them they are doing a great job. The lowest form of human on the planet.
@David Corrigan: Go for it, make it better.
No dole after 12 months for anyone able to work, simple as that. Can’t believe this is still allowed to continue
An obnoxious individual
There’s work everywhere now. Look who’s working as cleaners, garbage collectors, construction workers, security guards, hospitality sectors? Mostly immigrants. Why would dole collectors consider this job if they get 100, 200 quid less or the same or more for doing nothing?
@Bomber: immigrants live on simple staple foods and no luxuries so they have competitive advantage.
@Mr “JonnieBoy” Johnson: ciggies ans alcohol.
Its easy to see why Harris would give out his email. some lackey or civil servant opens that account – not Harris. You will get a long winded insincere answer, and the smirking and two faced answers will continue.
@Thomas O’Donnell: exactly
What ever happened to the butter vouchers?
The little perick and his FFG/g mates did bribe the electorate then took any gains back due to the greens and their obsession with carbon taxes and the ESB PSO charge increase. The electorate, judging by the polls, are too foolish to see this.
@Gerry Lamont: every single party would do the same.
Did you see SF’s alternative budget?
They’re all the same.
Simon Harris is a poindexter
@Argus Romsworth: what’s that?
@James Leahy:
A boring , inept person( had to look it up)
That money will mostly be spent in the pubs
I tell you what he’s not going to do he’s not going to ask. Any member of the gang to not take the double child allowance cause they earn enough money . They should be exempt from the child allowance payments
So the opposeverythingition want Christmas moved or cancelled until they can get power.
@thomas molloy:
Communist losers do not believe in Christmas.
@thomas molloy: Those rotten scoundrels! I can’t believe they want to cancel Christmas but you just said it AND wrote it down, so it must be true. You hardly just pulled it out of your backside in a mindless, Trumpian, fox news type of sound bite with absolutely no rationale behind it. Hardly
@H Woo: What about Communist winners? Do they believe in an invented holiday? What happens in the event of a draw?
Fair play to him giving the long term unemployed “some of their money back”
Now, as a self employed person,how do I claim some of my money back?
Well said Taoiseach what a joke these lads are, spend all their time moaning about the people not getting anything and then when they do they say it’s a bad move. Opposition is so weak in this country.
@Hotirish: get a life
@Hotirish: he’s not spending it wisely. Like the 9million on phone pouches spend it on poor kids on long surgery waiting lists. On more teachers sna s secondary schools and get that fecking children’s hospital up and running
Where did all go wrong Anthony?
Will it is better to get a few Bob now and be sure of it than to waste a vote on false promises that will never be fulfilled.
Vote for sale.
@Finbarr Spain: all the same do this do that do nothing as usual Ireland is living in the passed
It’s really unfair on SF – they shouldn’t be allowed to call an election when the economy is doing well and there are plenty of jobs.
@Derick R M: SF too busy. No time for governing. Other fish to fry
@Derick R M:
Stick in a border poll as well and watch shin Fein have a collective nervous breakdown.
Typical Social Democratic Attack, stones in a tin can rattling around and making noise without substance. It is obviously an acquired part of being a member of this middle stream “Wannabe” in power Party . . Unfortunately not realistic for the people, all in all just another group of Complainers in the Dáil.
Long grass whispering.
Harris is such a weak leader. Another sound bite machine with no action.
Decisions have been made We can argue anyway but which way Good luck to those who benefit The rest of us [yes me included] suck it up butter cup!
I’ll get them in the long grass!
that make me laugh because the people that will touch all these payments do not vote or if they do, not for them !!!
Did he listen to the people when he was minister for health ?
NO HE DIDN’T
have your say