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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
France hit by protests and disruption as new prime minister takes | |
office | |
By Saskya Vandoorne, Joseph Ataman, CNN | |
Updated: | |
12:49 PM EDT, Wed September 10, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
Nationwide unrest broke out across France on Wednesday as protesters | |
blocked roads, set fires and clashed with police, who responded with | |
tear gas, as anger grows against the country’s political class. | |
The interior ministry said 473 people had been detained, with 80,000 | |
police deployed nationwide, including 6,000 in Paris. The education | |
ministry said around 100 schools were disrupted and 27 fully blockaded. | |
It comes as , Sébastien Lecornu, enters office. | |
Appointed by President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, former defense | |
minister Lecornu succeeds François Bayrou, in parliament over his | |
unpopular plan to tame the deficit. | |
Critics say appointing a Macron loyalist on such a day amounts to a | |
baptism of fire for Lecornu. | |
The protests – called months ago – are aimed at Macron and the | |
political class. | |
Early Wednesday, activists launched small but disruptive actions, | |
closing off key ring roads in Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes and Caen. | |
‘No one listens to us’ | |
In the capital, a CNN team saw protesters obstructing the road outside | |
Gare du Nord, one of Paris’s busiest train stations. Police quickly | |
contained the situation as around 150 mostly young demonstrators | |
chanted anti-police slogans in a largely calm atmosphere. | |
Elsewhere, groups briefly occupied public buildings. | |
Adèle Aubert, 27, joined a rally in Paris, telling CNN that she was | |
demonstrating to “denounce” the new government, which she doesn’t | |
think will change anything for the people. | |
“But we will continue to do it (protest) because it’s our only way | |
of denouncing it. We try petitions, no one listens to us,” she told | |
CNN. | |
Thousands also gathered in Châtelet in central Paris. | |
“We’re angry, we’re very angry,” Anna, a 29 year-old | |
researcher, told CNN. | |
“What’s the point in voting? We feel like the government isn’t | |
listening to us,” she said, adding that people were fed up with | |
successive governments under Macron that did not include representation | |
from the left. | |
Impressed with the number of young people at the protest events | |
Wednesday, she said that she thinks next week’s protest in | |
conjunction with French unions will be even bigger. | |
Much of the day resembled a game of cat-and-mouse between protesters | |
and police, with flareups like in Rennes, the capital city of Brittany, | |
northwest France, where a bus was ransacked and set on fire. | |
In Paris a restaurant in the affluent 1st arrondissement was also set | |
ablaze. | |
The “Block Everything” movement – a loose, leaderless coalition | |
born on social media – first surfaced online in May among right-wing | |
groups but has since been taken over by the left and far-left. | |
A larger nationwide strike and protest is already planned for September | |
18, when all trade unions are expected to join. | |
Elodie, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher in Paris, downed tools to | |
join Wednesday’s protest. | |
She said she could no longer accept politicians “waving the flag of | |
debt to dismantle the public system, without asking the richest | |
companies and households to contribute.” | |
“I’m on strike for both social and economic reasons,” she told | |
CNN. | |
“The 2026 budget is unacceptable: it’s a budget of social | |
destruction and a blow to the French state. Even though Bayrou has been | |
forced out, once again it’s the poorest who are being targeted. | |
That’s why I’m on strike.” | |
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