Paris, Mar. 29, (dpa/GNA) - French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that 175 of the 13,000 police officers deployed on Tuesday amid protests and riots across France were injured.
Hundreds of thousands of people on Tuesday protested again in France against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, with police reporting riots in several cities and arrests in Paris.
According to preliminary figures, 201 people were arrested, Darmanin said in a tweet.
According to media reports, there were riots and property damage not only in Paris, but also in Nantes, Rennes, Lille, Bordeaux, Calais, Dijon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Caen. Police used water cannon and tear gas in some places.
The Ministry of the Interior spoke of about 740,000 participants nationwide. According to the CGT union, more than 2 million people participated.
The protests, which had been peaceful for weeks, are directed against the gradual increase of the retirement age from 62 to 64. The government wants to close a looming gap in the pension fund with the reform. The dispute intensified because Macron pushed the text through the National Assembly without a vote.
A week ago, two motions of no confidence in the government failed. The reform has thus been passed. It will now be reviewed by the Constitutional Council. Macron wants the reform to come into force by the end of the year.
GNA