Paris, Europe Brief News – Nationwide protests swept France on Thursday after the increase of pension age.
The protests triggered after the National Assembly failed to censure Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne’s government for imposing President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension cuts without a parliamentary vote.
Violent clashes between heavily-armed police and thousands of protesting youth and workers continued into the night in cities throughout France.
There were clashes with police in Toulouse around the Jean-Jaurès station, in Strasbourg around Kléber square, in Lille on Republic Square, and in Lyon around Bellecour Square.
In Strasbourg, police kettled and trapped protesters in narrow streets and shot multiple volleys of tear gas at them, leaving protesters to choke and pass out from the fumes.
Train services were also disrupted and some schools shut while garbage piled up on the streets, and electricity output was cut, as unions pressured the government to withdraw the law that delays retirement by two years, changing it from age 62 to age 64.
Plumes of smoke were further seen rising from burning piles of debris blocking traffic on a highway near Toulouse, in southwestern France. Wildcat strikes briefly blocked roads in other cities also.
The spontaneous protest near the airport’s terminal one would not impact flights, a spokesperson for Aeroports de Paris said.
