It’s the Tour de France of boos for Emmanuel Macron. In the aftermath of a turbulent day in Alsace, the French president was welcomed by hundreds of opponents of the pension reform Thursday in Hérault where he is making a new trip devoted to education.
About a thousand demonstrators formed a very noisy procession to welcome him in the city center of Ganges, north of Montpellier, contained a good distance from the college by the police. Whistles, vuvuzelas, smoke bombs… but no pots, especially prohibited by prefectural decree. The latter indeed prohibits “the use” of all “portable sound devices or emanating from vehicles not duly authorized”.
Black balloons as a sign of mourning
“We are here”, “Macron resignation”, sang the protesters in the city center of this town of 4,000 inhabitants of the foothills of the Cévennes, CGT flags, Unsa education, Snes-FSU and black balloons as a sign of mourning in hand. The day before in Alsace, Emmanuel Macron had been violently booed and taken to task during his first walkabout in weeks. A return to the field decided after the promulgation of its highly contested reform, raising the legal retirement age to 64 years.
In the Hérault, where he will be accompanied by the Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye, Emmanuel Macron will address “three axes” to “continue the transformation of public schools”, according to the Elysée. On Monday, during his televised address, the President of the Republic had promised that the school would change “at sight” from September, with “better paid” teachers, students “more supported”, especially in French and mathematics, and a “systematic replacement of absent teachers”.