Protesters march in Paris against cost of living crisis

Thousands of protesters, including France’s newly crowned Nobel Prize winner for literature, flooded the streets of Paris on Sunday to express anger over rising prices and pressure on President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

The march for higher wages and other demands was organised by Mr Macron’s left-wing opponents and ignited a week that his centrist government may find uncomfortable.

The transport strike called for on Tuesday threatens to coincide with wage strikes that have already crippled fuel refineries and fuel depots, sparking chronic gasoline shortages that are straining millions of workers and other vehicle-dependent motorists, with gas stations forming. Huge team.

Mr Macron’s government is also on the defensive in parliament, losing its majority in legislative elections in June.

That has made it harder for his centrist coalition to implement his domestic agenda against powerful rivals, with parliamentary discussions on next year’s government budget plans particularly difficult.

In an inflammatory speech at the Paris march, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Mr Macron had been “fired” and his leadership was throwing France into “chaos”.

He predicted that Mr Macron’s ministers would have to pass the budget in the lower house of parliament without giving lawmakers a vote – a controversial prospect that drew loud boos from the crowd.

Standing with Melenchon to demonstrate is the French writer Anne Erno, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. Melenchon, who was twice defeated by Macron in the presidential election, declared the protests “a great success”.

Organisers called it “a march against the high cost of living and climate inaction”.

In addition to calling for massive investment to tackle the climate crisis, they also called for urgent measures to tackle high prices, including a freeze on the cost of energy, basic goods and rent, and a tax on windfall profits.