March in France against Macron’s retirement plan

PARIS (AP) — Opponents of French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 staged a new round of protests on Saturday to urge the government to withdraw the unpopular plan. The pressure is still strong but this time far fewer people came than during previous marches.

The nationwide marches, the second round of protests in four days and the seventh since January, have been backed by strikes taking place in key sectors from energy to transport to garbage collectors. Garbage was piling up in Paris and other cities across the country.

Police clashed with rioters in several cities, including Paris, as they lambasted, confronted and gassed black-clad intruders who set fire to piles of rubbish along the march route and destroyed bus shelters, a lamp post and other urban equipment.

These “radical elements”, in the words of the police, often join protests to stir up trouble. Paris police reported that 32 people had been arrested.

Police counted around 48,000 protesters in Paris and the Interior Ministry said there were some 368,000 across France, well below the million people who marched in towns and villages on Tuesday to speak out against a plan that many consider unfair.

The left-wing CGT union, which generally estimates a much higher turnout than the police, said 300,000 people demonstrated in Paris and more than a million across France, figures lower than its estimates for past events.

Geraldine Carbonell, a 47-year-old social housing worker, said it was wrong to force everyone to work until they were 64.

“We are not all the same when it comes to the jobs we do,” he said. “64 is not the same whether you are a worker or a manager.

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Boubcar Benzebat and Patrick Hermansen in Paris contributed to this report.