Two days after Michel Barnier’s appointment to Matignon, a section of the left marched against the new Prime Minister and, above all, against “Macron’s coup de force”, according to the slogan of the 150 processions which set off in France on Saturday September 7, at the call of youth unions and left-wing parties.
Some 110,000 people marched across the country, according to the Interior Ministry. At the same time, the prime minister made his first visit to the Necker hospital for sick children in the 15the district of Paris. Assuring that health would be a priority of his future government, Michel Barnier declared: “I’m not here to make announcements or to show off. (…) “You have to understand to act and you understand better by listening to people and respecting them”adding: “We won’t be able to perform miracles.”
Further east in the capital, 26,000 demonstrators, according to the Paris Police Prefecture, 160,000 according to La France insoumise (LFI), marched between the Place de la Bastille and Place de la Nation. A mixed mobilization figure despite the presence, at the head of the procession, of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of LFI, who was accompanied by the president of the “insoumis” group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, and also the deputies Clémence Guetté and Aurélie Trouvé.
Read also | Live, Michel Barnier Prime Minister: around 110,000 demonstrators across France, including 26,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior
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Environmentalists, such as Benjamin Lucas, MP for Yvelines, and communists, such as the senator for Paris, Ian Brossat, were present. All are still indignant that the candidate of the New Popular Front (NFP), Lucie Castets, who was not present in the Parisian procession, was not appointed to Matignon. “I will come with pleasure if the four NFP formations are present”had confided to the MondeFriday morning, Mme Castets.
“We want to be listened to, but we are not”
However, not all of the NFP was there. The Socialist Party (PS) abstained even though the NFP, which accuses Emmanuel Macron of “denial of democracy”has already promised that he will file a motion of censure against Michel Barnier’s government in the National Assembly.
He plans to make controlling immigration one of his priorities and to reopen the debate on pension reform. “for the most vulnerable people”a bill that has been heavily criticized by the NFP political parties, but without “to question everything” due to the country’s difficult financial situation.
“Barnier, get lost, we didn’t vote for you,” the title of one of the banners can sum up the tone of the day. “By appointing Michel Barnier, Emmanuel Macron wants to pursue the same policy, regrets Brigitte Biebow, 67, retired from higher education, who sports a badge of the Human Rights League. When Michel Barnier’s name appeared, it made me laugh. Because he is a right-wing man and an old shark of politics. But I remain optimistic. If there are one or more censures of successive governments, we can hope for a moment for Lucie Castets or Bernard Cazeneuve. At some point, we will have to respect the results of the ballot boxes.”
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