The boss of the 88 deputies of the National Rally in the National Assembly said that "the crisis was predictable".

"I saw Elisabeth Borne in September and I told her: +If you use 49.3 to pass a pension reform, do not count on me to play firefighters - as I was able to do at the time of the Yellow Vests when it started to heat up very strongly - because you will have set the fire +", Marine Le Pen explained.

"I will not participate a second time in coming to put out a fire or try to participate in putting out a fire that you have started," she continued.

The adoption of the pension reform on Tuesday evening, after the rejection of motions of censure tabled by the oppositions in the wake of the government's use of 49.3, gave rise to spontaneous demonstrations often punctuated by tensions.

Nearly 300 people were arrested, including 234 in Paris.

The protest continues everywhere in France before a day of mobilization Thursday at the call of the trade union centers.

According to the unfortunate triple candidate in the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron "is the only one to have the keys: the keys, when there is a political crisis, is to return to the people". However, according to Marine Le Pen, the head of state "made the choice to give a second slap in the face to the French people by saying: +Listen, here, everything that has happened will lead to nothing. Nothing. No dissolution, no reshuffle, no withdrawal of the law, nothing, we will continue as if nothing had happened."

"Conscientiously, the government is putting in place all the conditions for there to be a social explosion, as if they were looking for that, as if an umpteenth episode of the season +Order against chaos+ had been written by Emmanuel Macron who lets disorder settle because, somewhere, he thinks that his elderly electorate may be reassured by the figure of order he will be able to embody in the face of the chaos he has created," Le Pen continued.

"All this is terribly unhealthy and, incidentally, terribly dangerous: in reality we throw French against French," she said.

© 2023 AFP