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French President Emmanuel Macron was loudly booed by crowds in eastern France on Wednesday as he embarked on his first trip to a French region since signing his unpopular pensions reform into law.
The French president was heckled during a visit to the small town of Sélestat, in the Alsace region, with protesters banging pots and chanting slogans including “Macron resign!”
“You’ll fall soon, just wait and see,” one man told the French leader, describing his government as “corrupt”. “We don’t want this pension (reform), what don’t you get?” asked another.
Electricity was briefly cut while he visited a local factory, where demonstrators had gathered holding hostile banners.
Asked by a journalist how he felt, the president replied: “I have had it worse.”
Police pushed back dozens of protesters banging kitchenware earlier in the day ahead of the president’s arrival in the village of Muttersholtz.
“Saucepans will not allow France to move forward,” Macron said as he visited a wood factory in the village.
“The reality across the country is not just those making noise with pans or grumbling,” he added.
Pot-bashing, a form of protest with a long history in France, began during Macron’s address to the nation on Monday evening after he signed the bill into law over the weekend.
The president made very few public appearances to speak to voters during the three months after announcing the deeply unpopular pension reform, whose flagship measure is hiking the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Political opponents and trade unions have urged protesters to maintain their campaign against the law and called for a new day of mass protest on May 1.
Around a hundred people from the CGT and CFDT unions gathered in front of the mayor’s office in Muttersholtz earlier on Wednesday, using frying pans and pan lids as well as whistles and horns to make noise.
After several requests from police to move back from the area, where local authorities have banned demonstrations, officers used force to push them 200 metres (650 feet) away.
On Tuesday evening, a private trip by Macron to Saint-Denis, northeast of Paris, also saw around 300 demonstrators voice their anger at his pension changes, which were signed into law last week.
“People will make themselves heard but that’s part of the moment,” an aide to the president told reporters on Wednesday, adding that there would be “expressions of anger most probably, support perhaps.”
The scenes recall Macron’s visits around France during the so-called “Yellow Vest” protests of 2018-19, when the head of state was frequently confronted by angry hecklers or protesters.
He was slapped in the face in 2021 by a 28-year-old unemployed mediaeval history enthusiast during a visit to a small town in southeastern France.
After Wednesday’s visit to a construction company in Muttersholtz, Macron is set to visit a school in the southern Herault region on Thursday.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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