‘Charged up’ and ‘busy’ atmosphere in Paris as thousands rally against Macron
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hi there Haxi. Yes, so the atmosphere is very much a charged up and busy one as you can see
00:05There's many people filing through this street right behind me next to Place de la Bastille, which is just there now
00:12They've taken over this whole street and police are expecting around 4,000 to 8,000 people to come out to protest today
00:19They're gonna be marching from Place de la Bastille all the way to Place de la Nation
00:24Which is just a few kilometers away now speaking to some of the protesters here
00:29They've really voiced some of the sentiment that we've heard from other leftist leaders
00:33They've said things like they feel their vote has been stolen. One person said they just feel
00:38rejected by this
00:40Announcement that Michel Barnier from the Republican Party will be leading the government
00:47They feel that their choice of Prime Minister Lucy Castaix wasn't even
00:53Tried that Macron just sort of rejected her off the get-go
00:58So they're going to be making sure that their voice is heard today
01:02You can see that there's many many flags behind me. There's flags from France on bow
01:07There's flags from the Communist Party and the Greens
01:11so it really is just a chance and an opportunity for them just a few days after
01:15Michel Barnier was nominated as Prime Minister to really make sure that their voice is heard and be defiant
01:22You mentioned a few of them just there Yinka, but who are the main groups protesting where you are today?
01:28Yes, so the protests were originally called by the youth organizations
01:34they called those protests because of
01:37The fact that they felt that Macron was really dragging his feet and because he had rejected Lucy Castaix, the civil servant
01:45From being Prime Minister. So they originally called those protests and then the France Unbowed Party, the hard left
01:53Joined that call and so did the Communists as well as the Greens
01:57So they're all here today and they of course renewed those calls when Michel Barnier was nominated as Prime Minister
02:03But missing from the protests officially are the socialists. Now the socialists didn't give a reason as to why they didn't officially call for protests
02:10today despite the fact that their leader
02:13Olivier Faure called
02:16Michel Barnier's nomination a
02:19Democratic betrayal. He hasn't actually put out an official call for people to protest today
02:24They said they just took the decision at a national level to not call for those
02:29Protests, but of course, we are likely to have members of the socialists still out here in the streets today
02:35And officially as well the leftist trade union the CGT aren't protesting today. They didn't put out a call
02:42They said that they prefer to focus on social issues
02:44they say they aren't a political party, but of course they've had in the past few years uproar against the
02:51pension reform put forward by
02:54Emmanuel Macron to raise the retirement age to
02:5864 so they aren't here out protesting but they say they support the protests that are going on right now