The demonstrations against the pension reform in Place de la Concorde and on the Champs Elysées in Paris were banned this Saturday by the police command, after two nights of protests overshadowed by incidents.
“Due to the serious risk of disturbances to public order and security (…) all demonstrations on public roads in Praça da Concordia and its surroundings, as well as in the Champs Elysees area, are prohibited,” the city hall told AFP.
“People who try to gather will be systematically demobilized by the forces of order” and could be fined, added the same source.
These places are located near the National Assembly and the presidential palace of the Élysée.
The challenge to the pension reform decided by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, took on more radical contours, with young activists tired of the weekly processions and ready to toughen up the fight, after the Government’s decision, on Thursday, to approve the text.
On Friday, as the day before, thousands of people gathered in the Place de la Concorde.
A bonfire was lit and the atmosphere became tense as night fell, with police charging into the crowd, according to AFP journalists.
Several hundred people confronted the police with bottles and rockets, which the latter responded with tear gas as they acted to evacuate the square, in the pouring rain. According to the police command, 61 people were questioned.
The day before, 10,000 demonstrators gathered at the site and 258 people were arrested.
The French Government decided on Thursday to adopt the pension reform, resorting to article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a text without a vote, unless a motion of censure is approved by the Executive. The measure provides for an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
On Monday, the National Assembly (parliament) is due to examine the motions of censure against the Government presented separately by a small group of independent deputies and by the extreme right.
The deputies of the independent group Liot deposited on Friday a motion of censure against the Government, co-signed by the left-wing coalition NUPES, in response to the imposition of the government reform.
In turn, the elected members of the National Union (RN, extreme right) advanced with a motion of censure a few minutes later.
“We will not vote on all the motions of censure presented”, underlined the far-right MP Laure Lavalette. The text presented by Liot is likely to unite different political fields, contrary to the motion of the National Union.
To bring about the fall of the Government, a motion of censure must gather an absolute majority in the National Assembly (287 votes). This result would require in particular that 30 deputies from the Os Republicanos party (LR, right), out of a total of 61, provide their support during the vote, a hypothesis that seems unlikely.