Protesters have confronted the French president over his extremely controversial pension reform
French President Emmanuel Macron was interrupted by a bunch of hecklers throughout a keynote speech within the Netherlands on Tuesday. The dissenters accused him of contempt for democracy in forcing by a pension reform that has triggered months-long protests in France.
Because the French chief was about to current his imaginative and prescient for “European sovereignty” on the Nexus Institute in The Hague, he was disrupted by a heckler crying, “I feel we misplaced one thing; the place is French democracy?” Different protesters current within the lecture corridor have been holding a banner studying: “President of violence and hypocrisy.”
“I can reply this query in case you give me a while,” Macron replied.
“Why did you bypass [the] French parliament?” one other protester screamed as safety proceeded to take away them from the corridor.
The activist was referring to a extremely controversial choice by the French authorities to compel the Nationwide Meeting to enact a pension reform that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.
“There are locations [where] you may have violence, that is precisely the kind of place the place this kind of expression is forbidden,” Macron acknowledged when not being interrupted. He mentioned that whereas he was prepared to debate the political course of in France, and that debates in a democracy have been fairly essential, democratically made selections must be revered.
The Dutch police mentioned after the incident that one man had been arrested and brought to the station for “potential dysfunction and violating the [local ordinance] on account of the usage of alcohol.”
One other minor protest motion additionally passed off exterior the venue the place Macron was delivering his speech, with demonstrators chanting slogans like “in opposition to, in opposition to, in opposition to 49.3, what we wish is democracy” – an obvious reference to the constitutional article which allowed the French authorities to power the regulation by parliament.
Whereas Macron has repeatedly argued that with no pension system overhaul, France will expertise vital monetary difficulties, his legislative push triggered huge violent protests stretching throughout the nation, which to this point present no indicators of abating.
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