PARIS, Mar 16, Anastasia Ivanova. Protesters because of the pension reform on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, the French built barricades of fences and boards, and then began to set them on fire, a correspondent reports from the scene.
French authorities on Thursday adopted a bill on pension reform without a vote in parliament, resorting to Article 49.3 of the country's constitution. Now the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years will be fixed at the legislative level and will come into force in six months.
On Thursday, opponents of the pension reform gathered outside the French National Assembly (lower house of parliament) in Paris, where a vote on a draft law was supposed to take place, which ultimately did not take place due to the decision of Prime Minister Elisabeth Born to resort to an article of the constitution.
The audience chanted: «Macron — resign!», «We will not surrender!», «We are here, even if Macron does not want it!».
Later they moved to the Place de la Concorde, not far from which the Elysee Palace is located.
Hundreds of protesters set off firecrackers and lit flares, but the situation remained calm. The action involves radicals from the black bloc movement. The policemen and gendarmes who are on site do not yet interfere with the demonstration.
Currently, the protesters are burning fences and boards, from which they previously tried to build barricades.
According to the police, the number of demonstrators in the Place de la Concorde in Paris has already reached 6,000 people.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born on January 10 presented a bill that would raise the country's retirement age and abolish «special» regimes for a number of difficult professions. According to her, the authorities will begin to raise the retirement age in the country by three months a year from September 1, 2023. Thus, by 2030 he will reach 64 years.
The reform caused a wave of protests in French society. In two months, eight nationwide strikes have already taken place in France, against which the trade unions held hundreds of demonstrations. Most of them gathered more than a million participants across the country. The protests were accompanied by pogroms and clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters.