- In a firebrand speech, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon charged that Macron is ‘fried’ and that his leadership is plunging France into ‘chaos’
Tens of thousands of protesters, including France’s newly crowned Nobel literature laureate, piled into the streets of Paris on Sunday, in a show of anger against the bite of rising prices and cranking up pressure on the government of President Emmanuel Macron.
French news channel BFMTV cited the organisers as saying that some 140,000 people took to the streets of the French capital. Organisers had only expected about 30,000 people to turn up.
The demonstrations took place amid rising inflation and fuel shortages. Massive crowds of protesters took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to voice discontent over the rising cost of living. It comes as the country’s largest trade union continues a refinery strike that has closed gas stations across the country.
The protest was organized by Jean-Luc Melenchon, a former presidential candidate and leader of the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) party. A number of other leftist parties and organizations participated, with some calling on President Emmanuel Macron to take stronger action against climate change.
However, economic concerns are first and foremost on the minds of protesters. “It’s not the march of Mr. Melenchon,” the LFI leader told France 3 TV on Sunday morning. “It’s a march of the people who are hungry, who are cold and who want to be better paid.”
“The rise in prices is unbearable,” LFI deputy Manon Aubry told AFP. “It is the greatest loss of purchasing power in 40 years.”
#France Paris #Marche16Octobre Protests over high cost of living pic.twitter.com/AWEu42MDc4
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France’s inflation rate currently stands at 6%, while almost all of the country’s industrial sectors have recorded a drop in activity due to rising energy costs, largely a result of the EU’s sanctioning of Russian fossil fuels following the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. With household energy bills soaring, firewood is once again in demand in France, and power outages have been forecast.
Clashes between far-left radicals – a regular fixture at French protests – and police officers were reported, with riot police firing tear gas to subdue the black-clad rioters.
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Amid the protests, France’s CGT trade union is continuing strikes at oil refineries, demanding pay rises for workers. The strikes, which have been ongoing for three weeks, have caused shortages and rationing at gas stations. GCT said on Saturday that it rejected a pay offer from oil giant TotalEnergies., RT reports
Police said some 30,000 people had taken place, while a count commissioned by a French media collective came to 29,500 demonstrators.
Transport strikes called for Tuesday threaten to dovetail with wage strikes that have already hobbled fuel refineries and depots, sparking chronic petrol shortages that are fraying nerves among millions of workers and other motorists dependent on their vehicles, with giant queues forming at petrol stations.
Macron’s government is also on the defensive in parliament, where it lost its majority in legislative elections in June. That is making it much harder for his centrist alliance to implement his domestic agenda against strengthened opponents, and parliamentary discussion of the government’s budget plan for next year is proving particularly difficult.
Mélenchon predicted that Macron’s ministers would have to ram the budget through parliament’s lower house without giving politicians a vote – a controversial prospect that provoked loud boos from the crowd.
Organisers called it a “march against the high cost of living and climate inaction.” As well as calling for massive investment against the climate crisis, protesters also demanded emergency measures against high prices, including freezes in the costs of energy, essential goods and rents, and for greater taxation of windfall profits.