Marches in Europe for May Day

Citizens and unions took to the European streets on Sunday to participate in the May Day marches and send messages of protest to their governments, particularly in France, where the workers’ holiday was used as a sort of war cry against the newly re-elected president, Emanuel Macron.

The May Day demonstrations, a week after the French presidential election, are aimed at showing Macron the opposition he could face in his second five-year term.

Opposition parties, particularly the far left and far right, seek to break the majority of his government. Protests were planned across France, but most notably in Paris, where the communist-backed CGT union was leading the main march through the city’s east.

Everyone is pressing Macron for policies that put people first and condemning his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65.

At first, far-right leader Marine Le Pen was absent from her party’s traditional floral offering at the foot of a statue of Joan of Arc, replaced by the interim president of her National Rally party.

Le Pen was defeated by Macron in the second round of last Sunday’s presidential election and plans to campaign to keep her seat as lawmaker.

In Turkey, police surrounded protesters near Taksim Square, where 34 people were killed on May Day 1977 when they fired on the crowd from a nearby building. Police detained 164 people for demonstrating without a permit and resisting police in the square, the Istanbul governor’s office said.

In Italy, after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, an open-air mega-concert was organized in Rome with rallies and protests in cities across the country. Peace was an underlying theme with calls to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The three main Italian unions were concentrating their main demonstration in the city of Assisi. “It is a May Day of social and civil commitment for peace and work”, said the leader of the Italian CISL union, Daniela Fumarola.

There were other protests across Europe. In Slovakia and the Czech Republic students demonstrated against the war and in favor of Ukraine.

Associated Press/OnCuba.