Dozens of French demonstrators blocked the entrance to the Louvre Museum on Monday March 27 and stormed the halls of the institution to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. would have museum employees, who announced that he was farm for the day.
Protests against Macron’s pension reform plan have swept France for months and unions have called for the tenth round nationwide strikes tomorrow, Tuesday, March 28. (The action came a day earlier at the Louvre, which is closed on Tuesdays.) The museum said Hyperallergic it closed due to ‘public strikes’, but declined to comment on today’s protest or the involvement of its workers. It will reopen on Wednesday March 29.
The widespread protests — which involved more than a million protesters last Thursday – have intensified since March 16, when Macron used a rare constitutional maneuver to raise the retirement age in France without a vote in Parliament. The troubles that followed turned violent in parts of the country and provoked a police crackdown that some human rights organizations have condemned as involving excessive force. Nearly 500 people were stopped, garbage piled up on Parisian sidewalks as sanitation workers went on strike, thefts and train journeys were canceledand King Charles of England postponed his state visit. Macron called a crisis meeting today, March 27, ahead of the looming protests tomorrow.
In videos shared online, Louvre protesters can be seen waving union flags and holding banners denouncing Macron’s rising retirement age and can be heard chanting “We don’t let go until the withdrawal” — “No surrender until [the plan] is removed. »
International visitors to the museum, however, expressed mixed reactions to the closure. “I understand why they are upset,” an American tourist told the Associated press. “But [it’s bad] to do this to people all over the world who traveled from all over the world for this and paid thousands of dollars.
Another expressed a more understanding view, saying: “If you believe strongly that this will bring change, there are many other things we can see in Paris.”
