Emotions run high in strikes, protests in France

Protesters hit France with transport strikes that notably hobbled the Paris Metro, demonstrations, and traffic slowdowns and blockades Thursday, pitting the power of the streets against President Emmanuel Macron’s government and its proposals to cut funding for public services that underpin the French way of life.

- By Nico.as GARRIGA, THOMAS ADAMSON AND JOHN LEICESTER

MIGUEL MEDINA AFP/Getty Images.

A PROTESTER lights flares in Marseille, in southeastern France, on a day of nationwide demonstrations.

The first whiffs of police tear gas came before daybreak, with scuffles between riot officers and protesters in Paris. Nationwide demonstrations, from France's biggest cities to small towns, were expected to mobilize hundreds of thousands of marchers, voicing anger about mounting poverty, sharpening inequality, and struggles for low-paid workers and others to make ends meet.

“We say ‘no’ to the government. We've had enough. There's no more money, a high cost of living,” striking transport worker Nadia Belhoum said at a predawn protest targeting a Paris bus depot. She described “people agonizing, being squeezed like a lemon even if there’s no more juice.”

Unions targeting budget cuts

Labor unions that called strikes are pushing for the abandonment of proposed budget cuts, social welfare freezes and other belt-tightening that opponents contend will further hit the pockets of low-paid and middle-class workers and which triggered the collapse of successive governments that sought to push through savings.