After the activation on Thursday of 49.3 to pass the pension reform, anger is not running out of steam in the street. In Paris, the district of the Place d'Italie was Saturday night the scene of clashes with the police materialized in particular by fires of garbage cans or throwing projectiles.

According to a police source, 81 people were arrested on the Place d'Italie and surroundings, where calm had returned around 22:30 p.m. This is the third night of tension in the capital.

Garbage fires and tear gas

Opponents of the reform moved from the eighth to the thirteenth arrondissement, because gatherings on Place de la Concorde and on the Champs-Elysées had been banned earlier in the day by the police prefecture. Finally, at the call of the CGT Ile-de-France, a procession of "4,000" people according to the police marched to the Butte-aux-Cailles district in the Place d'Italie district. At the rally, garbage fires were lit, billboard windows and bus shelters targeted, construction barriers used to block streets.

Around 20 p.m., the security forces intervened, including the Brigades for the Repression of Violent Action Motorized (BRAV-M), and used tear gas. Police made charges. Dispatched to extinguish a fire Place d'Italie, firefighters were prevented by groups of young people and the police "intervened to push the disruptors," said a police source. In the mess, people shouted "Macron resign", or "if you think of Macron you will never have a money".

Between 6,000 and 15,000 demonstrators in Nantes

Elsewhere in France, anger was also palpable on Saturday. Gatherings took place in several places in the regions, from large cities to medium-sized towns: Lille, Amiens, Caen, Saint-Etienne, Roanne, Besançon, Dijon, Grenoble, Gap, Annecy, Lodève etc. A few hundred demonstrators also marched in Marseille.

OUR DOSSIER ON PENSION REFORM

Some processions counted several thousand people, as in Nantes (6,000 according to the police, 15,000 according to the unions) or Brest (between 5 and 8,000), with some tensions. In Bordeaux, an improvised procession brought together 1,900 people according to the prefecture. "The President of the Republic is obviously following the evolution of the situation" on the ground, said Emmanuel Macron's entourage.

  • Pension reform 2023
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  • Demonstration
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  • Nantes
  • Pays de la Loire