French police brace for violence as new pension protests erupt

Demonstrations got underway peacefully Tuesday morning, with large crowds in multiple cities. But police braced for violence later in the day.

Protests and strikes against unpopular pension reforms kicked off again Tuesday across France, with police security ramped up amid government warnings that radical demonstrators intended “to destroy, to injure and to kill.”

Concerns that violence could mar the demonstrations prompted what Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described as an unprecedented deployment of 13,000 officers, nearly half of them concentrated in the French capital.

After months of upheaval, an exit from the firestorm of protest triggered by President Emmanuel Macron ’s changes to France’s retirement system looked as far away as ever. Despite fresh union pleas hat the government pause its hotly contested push to raise France’s legal retirement age from 62 to 64, Macron seemingly remained wedded to it.

The French leader previously used a special constitutional power to ram the reform past legislators without allowing them a vote. His move this month further galvanized the protest movement. Violence has since flared and thousands of tons of stinking garbage have piled up on Paris’ streets as sanitation workers strike.

“Everybody is getting madder,” said Clément Saild, a train passenger at Paris’ Gare de Lyon railway station, where tracks were temporarily invaded and blocked Tuesday by protesting workers.

He said said he supports the strikes despite their impact on transportation and other services.

“I am 26, and I wonder if I will ever retire,” he said.

Another passenger, Helene Cogan, 70, said: “French people are stubborn and things are getting out of hand.”