Thousands protest against Macron under heavy security in Paris

PARIS: Depicting the object of their ire as Napoleon, Dracula, Jupiter, a banker-king and Margaret Thatcher, tens of thousands marched through central Paris on Saturday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping reforms, a year after he took office. Some 2,000 security forces including riot police were deployed as marchers gathered from midday in warm early summer sunshine in the central Opera square for a protest dubbed a “Party for Macron”, a tongue-in-cheek “celebration” of the 40-year-old centrist’s first anniversary in power. Smaller rallies took place in the southern cities of Toulouse and Bordeaux while the Paris variant kicked off with a mass picnic which drew numerous families. Organisers had urged participants to attend in a party mood -- but the high security owed much to hundreds of black-clad youths having torched cars and a McDonald’s restaurant during traditional May 1 demonstrations in the capital, prompting fears that more “black bloc” protesters could hijack Saturday’s event. Photo: GERARD JULIEN / AFP

A protester holds a placard which translates as "Revolution in motion" in a play on words with the name of the ruling party "En marche" (in motion) during a rally called to protest against policies of the French president . Organisers insisted the march from Opera to the Bastille area, east of the city centre, would be “joyful and festive.”

But government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had expressed fears Friday that the demonstration could turn violent. He noted that the protest’s name, the “Fete a Macron”, can have a double meaning in French -- either celebrating someone, or trying to do them harm. Some supporters of the left-wing populist La France Insoumise party (LFI) brandished anti-Macron banners with slogans including “down with the president of the rich,” “no to a social coup d’etat” and “for a Sixth Republic.”

The protest is the latest in a series of large street demonstrations against Macron, whose overhauls of everything from the education system to the state rail operator have been causing friction with various groups. It was organised by François Ruffin, an MP for the leftwing party La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed, and other former members of the Nuit Debout, or Up All Night movement that staged nocturnal rallies across France in 2016. Ruffin told AFP this week that Macron may have won a democratic election last May but “democracy does not mean shutting up for five years”. “People have the right to challenge him,” said Ruffin, a journalist whose documentary “Merci Patron”, about a poor couple who take on France’s richest man, captured an angry zeitgeist and filled cinemas in 2015.
Thousands of people in central Paris demonstrate in an anti-Macron protest against his sweeping reforms. 2,000 security forces are deployed.