France braces for fresh protests as Macron seeks to prevent repeat of October unrest
- On Thursday, five French union confederations launched nationwide strikes and demonstrations against Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's 2027 budget, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez deploying 70,000 security forces amid disputes over Paris protest routes.
- Lecornu's 2027 budget includes pay freezes and spending cuts; workers demand higher wages and improved public services to combat rising costs for fuel, food, rent, and energy bills.
- Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced the deployment, promising "an extremely firm response" to potential violence, while student Irma de Banville, 19, joined protests citing fears of police tactics and under-resourced schools.
- The Paris administrative court rejected unions' emergency appeal Wednesday, upholding police restrictions that redirected the march from Place de la Bastille to Place de la République along Boulevard Voltaire instead.
- Yellow Vest activists scheduled further blockades for Friday and Saturday as unrest extends ahead of next year's presidential election; prediction markets place 6.5% probability on a state of emergency by December 31.
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359 Articles
The national mobilization brings together trade union centers, employees and students to demand immediate wage increases in the face of inflation. About 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed throughout the country in the face of the government's fear of looting and violence.
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate on Thursday for wages and purchasing power, on a day under high surveillance.
Tens of thousands of French returned to the streets this Thursday, a date marked in the calendar as the day of convergence of social mobilizations and strikes...
More than 250,000 demonstrators in 73 French cities are taking part in strikes, the major French trade union CGT (CGT) said.
Nothing will stop us, declared Sophie Binet, general secretary of the influential CGT union. The unions have called for a general strike and large protest marches for Thursday. High school students, students and pensioners have joined the workers and civil servants. In Paris alone, around 80,000 to 100,000 people are protesting. Demonstrations are breaking out in other parts of France. The first incidents are reported from the city of Nantes.
The social grunt rises in France: strikes and demonstrations under high security.
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