Angry Crowd Heckles France’s Macron over Pensions

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with people during a visit in Selestat, eastern France, April 19, 2023. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with people during a visit in Selestat, eastern France, April 19, 2023. (Reuters)
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Angry Crowd Heckles France’s Macron over Pensions

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with people during a visit in Selestat, eastern France, April 19, 2023. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with people during a visit in Selestat, eastern France, April 19, 2023. (Reuters)

Protesters greeted French President Emmanuel Macron with boos and calls for him to resign in his first public appearance since he signed into law an unpopular rise in the retirement age.

Outside a factory he was visiting in the eastern Alsace region, Macron was faced with hostile banners and banging on pots. Electrical power inside the factory was also cut briefly.

Then as he walked through the crowd in a nearby village, many shouted "Macron, resign!" and one man told him: "We don't want this pension (reform), what don't you get?"

Another man told him he was leading a corrupt government and added: "You'll fall soon, just wait and see."

There were also some cheers, one man told him to "hang in there," a woman thanked him for his work and others asked for selfies.

But even in a region that is pro-Macron - it voted slightly more for him than the national average in the 2022 presidential election - the welcome was mostly hostile.

Macron signed into law at the weekend the rise in the retirement age which means citizens must work two years longer before receiving their state pension.

That was after three months of protests that gathered huge crowds and at times turned violent.

In the village of Selestat, Macron said he was fine with people expressing their discontent. "But the country must move forward," he said.

Earlier at the factory visit, he had also shrugged off the display of discontent, saying: "Pans won't help France move forward".

He said it was not possible for a society to listen only to those who "make the most noise" as he sought to highlight positive aspects of France's labor legalization.



Plane Crash Kills 179 in Worst Airline Disaster in South Korea

Firefighters work near the wreckage of a Jeju Air aircraft at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, 29 December 2024. EPA/HAN MYUNG-GU
Firefighters work near the wreckage of a Jeju Air aircraft at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, 29 December 2024. EPA/HAN MYUNG-GU
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Plane Crash Kills 179 in Worst Airline Disaster in South Korea

Firefighters work near the wreckage of a Jeju Air aircraft at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, 29 December 2024. EPA/HAN MYUNG-GU
Firefighters work near the wreckage of a Jeju Air aircraft at Muan International Airport in Muan, South Jeolla Province, South Korea, 29 December 2024. EPA/HAN MYUNG-GU

The deadliest air accident ever in South Korea killed 179 people on Sunday, when an airliner belly-landed and skidded off the end of the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at Muan International Airport.
Jeju Air flight 7C2216, arriving from the Thai capital Bangkok with 175 passengers and six crew on board, was trying to land shortly after 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) at the airport in the south of the country, South Korea's transport ministry said, according to Reuters.
Two crew members survived and were being treated for injuries.
The deadliest air accident on South Korean soil was also the worst involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades, the transport ministry said.
The twin-engine Boeing 737-800 was seen in local media video skidding down the runway with no visible landing gear before crashing into navigation equipment and a wall in an explosion of flames and debris.
"Only the tail part retains a little bit of shape, and the rest of (the plane) looks almost impossible to recognize," Muan fire chief Lee Jung-hyun told a press briefing.
The two crew members, a man and a woman, were rescued from the tail section of the burning plane, Lee said. They were being treated at hospitals with medium to severe injuries, said the head of the local public health centre.
Authorities combed nearby areas for bodies possibly thrown from the plane, Lee said.
Investigators are examining bird strikes and weather conditions as possible factors, Lee said. Yonhap news agency cited airport authorities as saying a bird strike may have caused the landing gear to malfunction.
The crash was the worst for any South Korean airline since a 1997 Korean Air crash in Guam that killed more than 200 people, transportation ministry data showed. The previous worst on South Korean soil was an Air China crash that killed 129 in 2002.