Paris police ban gatherings on key sites as French pension protests grow | France | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/18/paris-clashes-continue-over-french-pension-age-rise
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While legal under France’s constitution, the move has infuriated opposition parties and led to spontaneous street protests, presenting the greatest challenge to the president’s authority since the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests of 2018.
Refinery strikes escalated on Saturday and rolling strikes continued on the railways as Philippe Martinez, the leader of the CGT union federation, said Macron had been “warned that the situation was explosive. No one can say we didn’t say anything; we told him.”
In Paris, a 13-day bin strike is expected to continue until at least Tuesday, leaving more than 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled high on the pavements in 10 of the capital’s 20 arrondissements that rely on municipal, rather than private, rubbish collectors.
While the street protests have been largely peaceful, riot police fired teargas and clashed with demonstrators on Friday night in Paris, where 61 people were arrested after a fire was lit on the Place de la Concorde near the national assembly.