Europe 1 with AFP 14:15 p.m., March 24, 2023

The president of the National Assembly on Friday asked politicians, unions, journalists and "ordinary citizens" "to call for calm" after the violence that occurred on Thursday on the sidelines of demonstrations against the pension reform. "We cannot accept that this goes through violence of any kind," she insisted.

The president of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet on Friday asked politicians, unions, journalists and "ordinary citizens" "to call for calm" after the violence that occurred the day before on the sidelines of the demonstrations against the pension reform. "Today, it is necessary that all those responsible, whether they are political, whether they are unions, whether they are ordinary citizens, whether they are journalists, everyone must call for calm," said the Renaissance deputy at the microphone of France Bleu Normandie.

"Very strong condemnation" of this violence

"We cannot accept, we cannot condone that this goes through violence of any kind," she insisted, pointing to left-wing elected officials whom she called for "a very strong condemnation" of this violence. So far sporadic, the violence made a spectacular entry Thursday in the protest on the sidelines of the 9th day of mobilization against the postponement of the legal retirement age to 64 years at the call of all the unions.

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Door of the town hall of Bordeaux burned, "scenes of chaos" denounced by the mayor of Rennes, water cannons in Lille and Toulouse, demonstrator with a thumb torn off in Rouen, police station targeted in Lorient (Morbihan)... Yaël Braun-Pivet refused to compare this violence to the symbolic one of a reform adopted without a vote in the National Assembly thanks to 49.3. "The use of procedures that are provided for by the Constitution, for me, in a difficult phase for our country is not something that can be described as 'disrespect'," she said.

"We failed to reach a consensus"

In the footsteps of Emmanuel Macron who criticized the attitude of the unions on Wednesday, she also included them in "a collective failure" to "make our compatriots accept a reform that has been accepted throughout the rest of Europe". "We have not managed to reach a consensus with the trade union forces, they must take their share, we political forces must take our share, I think the government is taking its share too, Parliament must take its share," she said.