Protests Resume in France amid Anger at Macron's Pension Age Reform

Protesters hold a banner reading "all on strike" during a rally called by French trade unions in Toulouse, southwestern France, on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Protesters hold a banner reading "all on strike" during a rally called by French trade unions in Toulouse, southwestern France, on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
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Protests Resume in France amid Anger at Macron's Pension Age Reform

Protesters hold a banner reading "all on strike" during a rally called by French trade unions in Toulouse, southwestern France, on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
Protesters hold a banner reading "all on strike" during a rally called by French trade unions in Toulouse, southwestern France, on January 19, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

Refinery strikes persisted on Saturday in France and more demonstrations were taking place throughout the country amid anger at the government pushing through a rise in the state pension age without a parliamentary vote.

The growing unrest, combined with rubbish piling up on the streets of Paris after refused workers joined in the action, has left President Emmanuel Macron with the gravest challenge to his authority since the so-called "Gilets Jaunes" (Yellow Vests) protests of December 2018, Reuters said.

Some 37% of operational staff at TotalEnergies' (TTEF.PA) refineries and depots - at sites including Feyzin in southeast France and Normandy in the north - were on strike on Saturday, a company spokesperson said.

Meanwhile rolling strikes continued on the railways.

Riot police clashed with protesters on Friday evening in Paris as a demonstration took place at the capital's Place de la Concorde, near the Assemblee Nationale parliament building, resulting in 61 arrests.

"There is no place for violence. One must respect parliamentary democracy," Digital Transition and Telecommunications Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told Sud radio.

A further rally was planned in Paris later on Saturday while BFM television showed images of demonstrations already taking place in cities such as Compiegne in the north, Nantes in the west and Saint-Etienne in central France.

A broad alliance of France's main unions has said it would continue to mobilize to try to force a U-turn on the changes. A day of nationwide industrial action is scheduled for Thursday.

While eight days of nationwide protests since mid-January, and many local industrial actions, had so far been largely peaceful, the unrest over the last three days is reminiscent of the Yellow Vest protests which erupted in late 2018 over high fuel prices, and which forced Macron into a partial U-turn on a carbon tax.

Macron's overhaul raises the pension age by two years to 64, which the government says is essential to ensure the system does not go bust.



Germans Mourn the 5 Killed and 200 Injured in the Apparent Attack on a Christmas Market

21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
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Germans Mourn the 5 Killed and 200 Injured in the Apparent Attack on a Christmas Market

21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)
21 December 2024, Bremen: Mobile barriers secure the streetcar tracks at the Christmas market in Bremen, after the Magdeburg's Christmas market attack the day before. (dpa)

Germans on Saturday mourned the victims of an apparent attack in which authorities say a doctor drove into a busy outdoor Christmas market, killing five people, injuring 200 others and shaking the public’s sense of security at what would otherwise be a time of joy and wonder.

The alleged attack Friday evening in Magdeburg, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, killed a 9-year-old and four adults and injured 41 people badly enough that authorities warned the death toll could rise.

Magdeburg marked the tragedy Saturday with the tolling church bells at 7:04 p.m., the exact time of the attack in the city of roughly 240,000 people.

The driver, a 50-year-old doctor who immigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006, surrendered to police at the scene. He’s being investigated for five counts of suspected murder and 205 counts of suspected attempted murder, prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said at a news conference.

Among other things, investigators are looking into whether the attack could have been motivated by the suspect’s dissatisfaction with the way Germany treats Saudi refugees, Nopens said.

“There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

Although Nopens mentioned the treatment of Saudi immigrants angle, authorities said Saturday that they still didn't know why the suspect drove his black BMW into the crowded market.

Police haven't publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The violence shocked Germany and Magdeburg, which is the capital of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring the centuries-old German tradition of Christmas markets. It led several other communities to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its many markets open but increased its police presence at them.

Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.

Friday’s attack came eight years after an extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.

Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs that she thought were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.

Shaking as she described what she had witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.

The number of injured people was overwhelming.

“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold,” she said.

The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red and white tape and police vans, as armed officers guarded at every entrance. Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.