Over 500 were arrested in protests on May 1 against Macron’s pension reform

Authorities in France reported Tuesday that at least 540 people had been arrested in the framework of the protests registered on May 1 in the country’s main cities and that over 400 police and gendarmes were injured.

The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has indicated that episodes of violence have been recorded in the International Workers’ Day demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.

“We must punish in the most forceful way those who attack the police,” Darmanin said.

Thus, he has explained that among the wounded, there are “some whose situation is extremely delicate, even if their lives are out of danger”.

The authorities have indicated that 259 people have been injured in Paris alone, according to information from the television channel BFMTV.

“Where is Jean Luc Mélenchon’s condemnation of the attacks against policemen?” the minister has pointed out, in a renewed attack on the leader of France Insoumise, whom he has accused of remaining equidistant not condemning the violence, according to information from the daily Le Figaro.

“His silence makes him an accomplice,” he said.

With information from LGI