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The ninth day of strike against Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reform has left apocalyptic images, almost a thousand fires throughout the country, 457 arrested, destroyed street furniture and prints more typical of a country in conflict than of cities like Paris or Bordeaux. The success of the unions' call (there were 3.5 million demonstrators throughout the country, according to their figures, 1.08 million according to Interior) has been marred by violence and protest, so far peaceful, and enters a new phase.

On Tuesday a new day of strike and demonstrations has been called and the visit of the King of England, Carlos III, who was to arrive on Sunday in Paris, has been canceled. "It will be postponed," the Elysee said. The decision "has been taken by the French and British governments after a telephone conversation between the President of the Republic and the King this morning, in order to be able to welcome His Majesty in the conditions that correspond to our relationship of friendship," says the Elysée, which adds that the visit will be rescheduled.

The violence of the protest against Macron's reform, which aims to raise the retirement age from the current 62 to 64, reached its peak on Thursday, after days of heated protests. At the center of the debate is the actions of the forces of order in the different demonstrations that took place throughout the country. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the officers had been attacked. There are 441 police and gendarmes injured, some seriously. "There are radicals who came to kill policemen," said the minister, who has accused the extreme left of whipping up chaos.

This, in turn, has denounced police violence. Darmanin has denied that it is systematic in nature and has said that it may have occurred "individually in a moment of fatigue". The device to prevent the protests from going wild was important: 12,000 officers across the country, 5,000 in Paris.

The trade unionist Laurent Berger has called on the government to "pause" the reform before "a drama occurs". Darmanin has said that a text cannot be withdrawn with the blackmail of violence. Eric Ciotti, chairman of the conservative Republican Party, has shown support for the police "attacked by the extreme left in Paris." La France Insoumise MP François Ruffin has accused Macron of using the strategy of chaos and "giving a police response to a political crisis."

A dozen investigations have been opened into some actions to assess whether there was abuse by agents. Amnesty International criticized a few days ago the excessive use of violence in the protests of the last week.

The fuse of anger ignited last Thursday, when the pension reform was approved by decree, without going through the vote of the Assembly. Since then, protests have been repeated daily throughout the country, spontaneous and unauthorized demonstrations that have ended with burning of containers, barricades, police charges and clashes between agents and demonstrators, especially in Paris.

At Thursday's demonstration (authorized and called by the unions) in Paris, 2,000 checks were carried out and 1,500 radicals were detected. Shops, shop windows, bins and part of the garbage that accumulates in the capital were burned after two weeks of the garbage strike were destroyed. Police responded by using tear gas and charges. In one of the images of the pitched battle, a policeman is seen fainting while his companions try to help him. "Death to the king, death to Darmanin," read one of the affected shops. Similar scenes were repeated in Lille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon and in small towns.

The streets are a ticking time bomb and the risk is that they will explode. "In the protest against the reform we have lived through two stages. The first, with peaceful demonstrations by trade unions demanding the withdrawal of the law. Now we have clearly moved on to another phase, with more violence and protests focused on the person of Macron, which generates a lot of personal anger. We are entering a phase of uncertainty, we do not know what can happen," explains political scientist Luc Rouban, from Sciences Po.

While the street burns, strikes continue in many sectors. The Government has had to intervene in refineries to get fuel to gas stations and airports, which had warned that they were in a critical situation of kerosene supply. Civil aviation has asked to cancel 20% of flights on Monday while Paris remains flooded with garbage and is already in its third week of stoppage of garbage dumps.

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  • Paris
  • Emmanuel Macron
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