PARIS: Marching with thousands of other protesters in Paris, hospital nurse Aya Touré put her finger on the pulse of many who took to streets across France on Thursday against the government of President Emmanuel Macron.
“Fed up. Really, really fed up,” she said. “Those people governing us, they have no clue about real-life issues. We are paying the price.”
Strikes that hobbled the Paris Metro and disrupted other services, coupled with nationwide demonstrations that saw sporadic clashes with police who fired volleys of tear gas, gave loud voice to widespread complaints that eight years of leadership by France’s business-friendly president have benefited too few people and hurt too many.
The day of upheaval for the European Union’s second-largest economy aimed to turn up the heat on new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his boss, Macron. They’re engaged in an intensifying battle both in parliament and on the streets about how to plug holes in France’s finances, with opponents fighting proposals to cut spending on public services that underpin the French way of life.
“I don’t know how it’s even possible to consider making cost savings,” said Clara Simon, a history student who marched in the crowd of demonstrators in Paris, brandishing a poster that read: “University in danger.”
“There’s already no money for soaps in the toilets, no money to fix a seat when it’s broken,” she said. “I’m angry because the economic and social situation in France is deteriorating every year.”
Protesters’ anger at budget cuts
Macron’s opponents complain that taxpayer-funded public services — free schools and public hospitals, subsidized health care, unemployment benefits and other safety nets that are cherished in France — are being eroded by his governments that have lurched from crisis to crisis since he dissolved parliament in 2024, triggering a legislative election that stacked Parliament’s lower house with critics of the president.
Left-wing parties and their supporters want the wealthy and businesses to pay more to help rein in France’s debts, rather than see public spending cuts that they contend will hit low-paid and middle-class workers. Placards at the Paris demonstration read: “Tax the rich.”
“We need to find money where there’s money,” said Pierre Courois, a 65-year-old retired civil servant. “France’s deficit is an issue, but it’s not by cutting on public services that you fix it.”
Many complained about mounting poverty, sharpening inequality and struggles to make ends meet.
“Our pay is stuck, colleagues are leaving, and wards are closing beds,” said 34-year-old public hospital nurse Stephane Lambert. “For us it’s the same story: less money in our pockets, fewer hands to help, more pressure every day.”
At a before-dawn protest at a Paris bus depot, striking transportation worker Nadia Belhoum said people are “being squeezed like a lemon even if there’s no more juice.”
Lecornu’s baptism of fire
As he seeks support for belt-tightening, Lecornu has trimmed lifetime benefits for former government ministers — a largely symbolic first step that won’t generate huge savings — and scrapped wildly unpopular proposals to eliminate two public holidays, a measure intended to spur revenue. He has been meeting opposition leaders and labor unions to try to build consensus for a budget, but his close relationship with Macron puts him in the firing line, too.
“Bringing in Lecornu doesn’t change anything — he’s just another man in a suit who will follow Macron’s line,” said 22-year-old student Juliette Martin.
On his first day in office last week, anti-government protests saw streets choked with smoke, barricades in flames and volleys of tear gas as demonstrators denounced budget cuts and political turmoil. That “Block Everything” campaign became a prelude for Thursday’s even larger demonstrations.
“For decades we’ve been the ones paying for the rich, paying for the billionaires, paying for the capitalists and they’ve emptied our pockets,” automobile factory union representative Jean Pierre Mercier said. “And today, supposedly, we must repay the debt, and once again it’s only the workers who are asked to pay, whether we’re employed, disabled, or retired.”
Scattered violence
The first whiffs of police tear gas came before daybreak, with scuffles between riot officers and protesters in Paris. The collapse of successive governments — brought down by votes in parliament — that sought to push through savings has given Macron’s critics a sense of momentum. The “Block Everything” campaign that developed online before taking to the streets also added to the climate of crisis.
As it did last week, the government said it was again deploying police in exceptionally large numbers — about 80,000 in all — to keep order on Thursday. Police were ordered to break up blockades and other efforts to prevent people who weren’t protesting from going about their business.
Paris police used tear gas to disperse a before-dawn blockade of a bus depot and deployed in force, backed by armored vehicles and firing more gas, at the afternoon march in the capital. French broadcasters also reported sporadic clashes in the western cities of Nantes and Rennes, and Lyon in the southeast, with volleys of police tear gas and projectiles targeting officers.
Striking rail workers waving flares made a brief foray into the Paris headquarters of the Economics Ministry, leaving trails of smoke in the air before leaving.
“The bourgeoisie of this country have been gorging themselves, they don’t even know what to do with their money anymore. So if there is indeed a crisis, the question is who should pay for it,” said Fabien Villedieu, a leader of the SUD-Rail train workers union. “We are asking that the government’s austerity plan that consists of making the poorest in this country always pay — whether they are employees, retirees, students — ends and that we make the richest in this country pay.”
The Interior Ministry reported 181 arrests nationwide as the afternoon ended and more than 450,000 demonstrators outside Paris, with protests in big cities and small towns. Paris police said that another 55,000 people marched in the capital. Participation estimates from the CGT, among unions that called the strikes and demonstrations, were double those of police, reporting more than 1 million strikers and protesters nationwide.
Travel disruptions
The Paris Metro operator said that rush-hour services suffered fewer disruptions than anticipated, but that traffic largely stopped outside those hours except on three driverless automated lines.
French national rail company SNCF said that “a few disruptions” were expected on high-speed trains to France and Europe, but most will run.
“Every time there’s a protest, it feels like daily life is held hostage,” said office worker Nathalie Laurent, grappling with morning disruptions on the Paris Metro.
“Lecornu — he’s only just started, but if this is his idea of stability, then he has a long way to go,” she said.