The Paris City Hall announced the opening of a crisis headquarters to deal with the consequences of the ongoing protest movement against pension reform.
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“Given the context, the Paris Municipality is launching a crisis headquarters,” the City Hall website says.
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The meetings of the headquarters will be held every day, and its work will allow “to identify the required actions and prioritize them, as well as make the necessary decisions to ensure the continuous operation of municipal services,” the text says.
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“(Paris Mayor) Anne Hidalgo calls for calm and calls on the government to withdraw the reform and engage in dialogue,” the statement said.
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Earlier, the French authorities sent a letter to Hidalgo demanding to forcibly return garbage collectors to work amid a crisis with waste on the streets of the city. The mayor responded that the situation was “totally explained” by the government’s push for an unpopular pension reform and refused to force them back to work. In response, Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nunez announced his decision to forcibly recruit protesters to collect more than 10,000 tons of rubbish.
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In addition, because of the protests, public transport was restricted.
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Last week, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne used article 49.3 of the French constitution to pass a bill to raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64 without a vote in Parliament. This step caused a wave of indignation among the deputies, who announced the “end of democracy.”
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The pension reform has caused a wave of protests in French society. In two months, eight nationwide demonstrations have already taken place in France. Most of them gathered more than a million participants across the country. Protests were accompanied by pogroms and clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters.
