France stages May Day rallies a year after pensions backlash
France’s two main trade unions on Wednesday were once again united for May Day parades after last year’s politically charged march against the government’s unpopular pensions reform.
The CGT and CFDT walked side by side in processions in at least half of French cities, including Paris, under the scattered slogans of promoting peace, fighting austerity and calling for a “more protective Europe for workers” ahead of the EU’s elections in June.
A total of 265 rallies were being held across the country.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Olympics protesters swelled the ranks of many parades, while farmers complaining of excessive red tape with regards to environmental rules joined in.
Violence
In Lyon, 22 people were arrested and two police officers injured after hooded individuals attacked a bank. Similar violence also broke out in the western city of Nantes.
Twenty-five people were arrested in Paris on the sidelines of the parade before it had even set off. Authorities posted a tweet of weapons including a knife and a pair of brass knuckles that had been confiscated.
Meanwhile MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, president of the EU parliament's left-wing Place Publique movement, was forced to leave a demonstration in the central city of Saint-Etienne after being chased by young protesters who pelted him with eggs filled with paint.
Glucksmann said he had been targeted by “small, violent groups” in an attack that was the result of "months of hatred and slander" cleverly orchestrated by the hard left.
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