Paris police skirmished Saturday with yellow vest activists joining a wave of protest actions against the government’s overhaul of France’s national retirement system, as highway blockades and train stoppages disrupted weekend travel around the country. A few thousand yellow vest protesters marched from the Finance Ministry complex on the Seine River through southeast Paris, pushing their year-old demands for economic justice — and adding the retirement reform to their list of grievances. As the strikes entered a third day Saturday, tourists and shoppers faced shuttered subway lines around Paris and near-empty train stations. A similar fuel tax is what unleashed the yellow vest movement a year ago, and this convergence of grievances could pose a major new threat to Macron’s presidency. They also plan new nationwide retirement protests Tuesday, despite the tear gas and rioting that marred the edges of the Paris march Thursday.

Source: thestar December 07, 2019 10:03 UTC