French protests: Violence erupts in Paris as police clash with protesters at Place de la Concorde
Police have clashed again with protesters angry at the French government’s plans to raise the country’s retirement age.
Protestors lit a fire and gathered in the Place de la Concorde, near the National Assembly building in Paris where they faced a line of riot police.
Images of tear gas being used by police to deal with the crowds was broadcast by Reuters TV, while other protesters were heard chanting “Macron, resign”.
This follows two motions of no confidence that were tabled against the French president, one of which came from Marine Le Pen’s party Rassemblement National and was signed by 88 cross-party MPs.
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
Another group of independent politicians put forward a second motion which was signed by 91 MPs from five parliamentary groups.
Earlier on Friday, police pepper sprayed young protesters near the Sorbonne University, while other protestors blocked traffic, bin collections stopped and students walked out of lectures.
Pic: AP
The National Assembly in the background of protests. Pic: AP
Many are angry at Mr Macron’s decision to force a bill through parliament to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a vote.
Mr Macron ordered Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to use a special constitutional power known as Article 49.3 to force through the controversial reform in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament.
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Demonstrators near the National Assembly
On Friday morning, Paris’s peripherique – the main ring road around the capital – was disrupted at almost 200 points during peak rush hour, according to French media.
The French Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, said 310 people were arrested in protests on Thursday, 258 of those in Paris.
The next few days will be telling
France is seething but where these protests go is hard to guess.
There’s undoubtedly widespread resistance to the raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Polls suggest 70 to 80% of the working population is against the idea.
But France is also weary of strikes.
The next few days will be telling.
More demonstrations across the country are planned and they may very well gain momentum.
At the heart of this is for many people, the soul of the nation and what it means to be French.
A dignified and comfortable retirement is seen as an inalienable right in a country which has always kept work in perspective.
But the question of how to deal with a pension crisis in a country where people are living longer and there are fewer workers to pay for it all remains.
The government’s answer is to raise the retirement age.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that this is an intractable issue that precedes President Macron’s time by many years.
On the streets the demonstrators see the French leader as simply a friend of the rich.
They claim the solution is higher taxes for the wealthy.
But one thing is clear and that is that one way or another change is coming.
A looming budget deficit and a bleak economic reality make that inescapable.
Mr Macron’s risky strategy has infuriated unions, opposition politicians and many citizens.
Opposition parties were expected to start the process for a no-confidence vote in the government later on Friday, however the vote is likely to take place next week.
Members of parliament hold placards and sing the Marseillaise, the French national anthem
The controversial reform has prompted nationwide strikes since January but the increasingly chaotic political situation has sparked immense anger.
Yellow Vest demonstrators, or the Gilets Jaunes – the protest group that has brought France to a standstill at several points in recent years – are also expected to take to the streets later.
Outside the largest waste incinerator in Europe, rubbish collectors insisted they would intensify the strikes to force the government to reverse course.
Streets are overflowing with rubbish. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
The collectors had voted to continue their strike action until at least 20 March, France Info reported.
More than 9,000 tonnes of waste has not been collected in Paris since the start of the strike.
“I call, and the CGT union calls, for a massive movement and for workers to go on strike massively,” said CGT union representative Régis Vieceli.
“That’s the only thing that will get them to back down. We need to hit them financially. When they start seeing the financial impact, they’ll go and cry on Macron’s shoulder.”
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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