Kalrav Joshi 
London/Paris: Police in Paris banned gatherings on the central Place de La Concorde on Saturday, March 18, as tens of thousands of citizens continued to protest for the third consecutive day after President Emmanuel Macron pushed through his divisive pension overhaul bill without a parliamentary vote this past week.
On Saturday, an estimated 4,000 people gathered in the Place de la Concorde and burned an effigy of Macron. After unions called for a resolute display of resistance ahead of its ninth day of nationwide industrial action scheduled for Thursday, protests have been underway in cities like Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseille, Brest and other parts of Paris.
Billboards and chants like, “Macron is going to break down, we are going to win” and “Macron, Resign!” reverberated in the Place d’Italie in southern Paris.
Several French cities, such as Marseille, Montpellier and Nantes, also witnessed peaceful protests and there were instances of violence too. In other sites, seemingly about Macron, one of the banners read: “Paris, stand up! Rise!”
According to polls, two-thirds of French citizens oppose the pension changes, which were a key campaign promise for Macron’s successful reelection bid in 2022.
There were huge demonstrations underway in places like Compiegne in the north, Nantes in the west and Marseille in the south.
While trash bins were set on fire, the riot police used tear gas and clashed with demonstrators.
“The reform must be implemented … Violence cannot be tolerated,” French finance minister Bruno Le Marie told Le Parisien newspaper.
Earlier on Thursday, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin granted police “enhanced protective measures” in the face of the ongoing protests that erupted as Macron used a special executive power to push the bill that would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 amid calls for a no-confidence motion from the opposition.
Using a measure known as the 49.3 after the relevant article of the French constitution, Macron’s use of the “nuclear option,” as the France 24 TV network described it, not only ensured that the law was passed – but also revealed that Macron and his cabinet had not been able to get a sufficient number of votes in parliament.
Though legal under the French constitution, the move has categorically angered opposition parties and sparked nationwide industrial action – including street rallies – and has challenged the President’s authority since the 2018 gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protests.
Two votes of no confidence in Macron’s administration have been passed by the parliament in response. Despite the political splits in the opposition, they are an indication of a profound resentment and are unlikely to be upheld when the MPs vote on them next week.
After protests that culminated in 61 arrests on Friday night, municipal authorities banned rallies on Saturday night on the Champ-Elysees and the adjoining Plaza de la Concorde in the heart of Paris. Shockingly, 81 were detained alone on Saturday night.
“It indeed does not feel that we are living in a democracy and part of Macron’s usage of executive powers captures it largely,” said one of the protesters to The Wire.
On Friday outside the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, Macron believed he could rely on centre-right Republicans to support his plan, but they started to turn on him.
According to Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate for the last two presidential elections who now serves as the leader of National Rally (RN) MPs in parliament, the move is a “total failure” for Macron and Borne “cannot stay” in her position.
A spate of protests and violent clashes between French police and protests erupted on the streets of Paris, as garbage continued to reek in the streets of Paris and beyond owing to continuing action by refuse collectors.
The 13-day bin strike in Paris is anticipated to last until at least Tuesday, leaving more than 10,000 tonnes of trash piled up on the sidewalks in 10 of the capital’s 20 arrondissements where public, rather than private, trash collectors are used.
In an editorial, the daily newspaper Le Monde warned that Macron may create the risk of “fostering a persistent bitterness, or even igniting sparks of violence.”
Another French citizen in his late 30s told The Wire, “Seldom is a bill forced through by mandate, and in many ways, this is seen to be a failure of Macron and his politics.”
A spokeswoman for TotalEnergies reported that 37% of the operational personnel at its refineries and depots, including those in Feyzin, southeast France, and Normandy, north of France, were on strike on Saturday.
Even though the majority of European nations have already increased the retirement age to well past 64, critics in France claim that the reforms are unjust to those who begin working at a young age in physically demanding jobs and parents who interrupt their careers.
“We have had enough. We feel as though we are being ignored and trodden upon,” the lead protestor added.
Macron is, in a sense, a victim of his own extraordinary success. In 2017, he promised a consensual kind of politics but the recent years of his tenure convey otherwise. He has been elected to two terms in office – no French president has done this in two decades – and effectively shattered the two political cornerstones of postwar France: the Socialist Party and the Gaullists.
French labour unions have called for new nationwide protests on March 23.
Kalrav Joshi is an independent multimedia journalist based in London. He writes on politics, culture, technology and climate.