French Revolution: Government will not ‘yield to violence’ 0

French President Emmanuel Macron strongly condemned violence that erupted in Thursday’s demonstrations against raising the French retirement age and said he would not give in to it.

“We will yield nothing to violence, I condemn violence with the utmost strength,” Macron told a news conference, after an EU Summit in Brussels, on Friday.

Macron is under pressure to find a way out of a crisis that has seen some of France’s worst street violence in years over a pension bill he has pushed through parliament without a vote.

As protests are expected to continue next week, a planned state visit to France from Britain’s King Charles III has been postponed at Macron’s request.

“I think we would not be serious and lack common sense to propose to His Majesty the King and the Queen Consort to come do a state visit in the middle of the demonstrations,” Macron said Friday.

The French president said that the visit would be rearranged for early summer.

Source: AFP