The French anti-labor law unions have rejected government’s call to cancel a planned march through the streets of Paris, a week after anti-labor law protests turned violent in the capital.
The unions on Tuesday refused to accept France’s embattled Socialist government’s plea to hold their Thursday march in the form of a stationary rally in a Paris square instead of staging a protesting march through the streets.
“The unions ... categorically rejected this proposal, noting that protest is a constitutional right and that it is up to the state to ensure security at all protests in public areas,” said a joint statement by the unions involved.
Late last week, seven unions, including the leading CGT labor union, had jointly asked the government for permission for a march covering 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) to be held in the capital.
The government, however, fears the risk of violence in case it allows the unions to hold a march at a time when police and security forces are currently stretched securing the Euro 2016 soccer tournament under a state of emergency. Almost all previous marches through Paris ended in violent standoffs with police and vandalism.
French police says they are too “exhausted” to tackle the possible violence emerging from a protesting march in a time when they are safeguarding, with all force, the soccer matches in the face of numerous terror threats posed by Takfiri terrorists.
“We're not seeking to ban the protests,” said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, adding “We're seeking to ensure that protests do not present a risk of violence. The police are tired and need some recovery time.”
During a June 14 protest, several hundred masked protesters in Paris hurled projectiles at police, who fired dozens of rounds of tear gas and used water cannons to disperse the crowd. The angry crowd ransacked shop fronts, clashed with police, tore up street paving and smashed the windows of a children's hospital during running battles in the capital. Dozens, from both sides, sustained injuries during the standoff.
Following the violent clashes, Cazeneuve said that the June 14 unrest “for the first time clearly proved the role of some union activists in deliberate aggression against security forces,” adding that given the “context of tension and recurrent clashes” another march “seems inconceivable.”
In the wake of the incidents, President Francois Hollande also threatened to ban demonstrations if property and people cannot be safeguarded.
The government has the right to ban public protests only on the grounds that there is a major risk to public order, and can enjoy more powers to do so under the emergency rules, which are already in place in the country since last November when terror attacks in Paris claimed the lives of 130 people.
The defiance of a demonstration ban would expose its organizers to fines and prison terms of up to six months, but at the same time enforcing such ban would require the government to deploy large numbers of riot police to the scene, which is currently difficult for the French government to do.
The government says the labor reforms are aimed at boosting the country’s economy and curbing the two-digit unemployment rate. Unions, however, say the government wants to make it easier and less costly for employers to lay off workers, calling the reforms an attack on workers’ rights.
The draft labor bill was recently forced through the lower house of parliament, but it must be debated in the Senate for final approval.
The European country has witnessed numerous rallies and violent protests since March when the government first proposed to make some changes to the labor laws in a bid to tackle the high unemployment rate.
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