At the beginning of a tenth day of demonstrations Tuesday against the pension reform, government and unions warn of a risk of "chaos" and it is against a backdrop of deleterious and violent climate, that Emmanuel Macron will receive Monday the heavyweights of the majority.

A short respite, after several tense nights. The protest against the pension reform continued in several cities on Saturday, with processions gathering a few hundred people. "Local rallies" encouraged by the inter-union before a new big day of mobilization Tuesday, including a Parisian procession that will parade from the Place de la République to Nation.

Clashes and damage

The day before, so Monday, Emmanuel Macron will receive Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and the executives of his majority - party leaders, ministers, parliamentarians - at the Elysee, with the deleterious social climate in the background.

While the clashes moved, the time of the weekend, around the basins of Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres), damage to street furniture and projectile throwing at the police were reported this Saturday in Rennes during the anti-reform procession.

But nothing comparable with the "scenes of chaos" in the Breton capital, which was moved by its mayor Nathalie Appéré during Thursday's demonstration. Excesses observed in many other cities: police station attacked in Lorient, porch of the town hall burned in Bordeaux, clashes and countless fires in Paris.



'Excessive use of force'

The culmination of a week of daily clashes, since the government's use of 49.3 to pass its reform in Parliament, this ninth day at the initiative of the unions also marked a rebound in mobilization, with between 1.09 million (Beauvau) and 3.5 million (CGT) participants.

Success overshadowed by the accusations of violence, which also target the police: thumb torn off for a demonstrator in Rouen, railway worker "blinded" in Paris according to SUD-Rail, unions "targeted by the water cannon" in Rennes ...

The Council of Europe has been alarmed by an "excessive use of force" and criticism has focused on the BRAV-M, a motorcycle unit responsible for maintaining order in the capital and whose dissolution is "not on the agenda" according to police chief Laurent Nuñez.

"Those who protest are angry, we must hear them"

Faced with this generalized hardening, the government blames some of its opponents. "Those who today fire mortars and try to burn" public buildings, "have a desire for disorder," said Sunday the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, during the political program of France Inter / France Televisions and Le Monde.

"These are people who respect nothing, certainly not human life," added the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, evoking on the set of the Grand Jury RTL / Le Figaro / LCI the "abominable" threats that she and other elected representatives of the majority have received recently.

"Those who protest are angry, we must hear them," government spokesman Olivier Véran told the Journal du Dimanche. Nothing to do with "the factious who come to sow chaos in the country".

"Absurd to risk plunging France into chaos for so little"

Argument returned by the secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, who recalls in an interview with the magazine Le Grand Continent that the pension reform aims to generate "barely 10 billion euros in savings" and considers "absurd to risk sinking the France into chaos for so little".

The president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, for his part, accused the executive of "speculating on violence", adding on France 3 that, according to him, "Emmanuel Macron takes a malicious pleasure in this disorder and chaos".

"Move forward now"

The head of state, who called Friday for "the greatest firmness" in the face of violence, said he wanted to "wait for the decision of the Constitutional Council" on the pension reform - within three weeks - while saying he was "at the disposal" of the unions "to move forward immediately" on other subjects such as wages and working conditions.

A way to respond to the "anger" that "goes far beyond the pension reform," said Saturday Elisabeth Borne, seeing in the social movement underway for two months "a demand for justice".

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