French torch police car in protest against police brutality
French demonstrators have set ablaze a police car in the capital, Paris, in a move to vent their outrage at police violence exercised against opponents of the contentious government-proposed labor reforms.
The car was set on fire on Wednesday in a central Paris street a few hundred meters from where law enforcement officers were holding a rally to express their frustration with near daily clashes with what they called violent gangs on the fringes of labor protests.
Witnesses and officials said three officers escaped the vehicle when a smoke bomb was thrown inside by people who were chanting “police everywhere, justice nowhere.”
The officers were said to be shocked but not seriously injured.
The French public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into attempted murder in connection with Wednesday’s car-torching incident.
Denouncing what it described as mounting “anti-cop hatred,” French police staged rallies in around 60 towns and cities across France with the Paris event taking place in the Place de la Republique.
French people complaining of police brutality were prohibited from staging a counter-demonstration at the site where the police march was underway.
Some 300 counter-protesters arrived shouting slogans such as, “Cops, pigs, assassins” and “Everyone detests the police.”
The demonstrators, however, were pushed back by riot police using tear gas.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, France’s local train services and ferry connections to Britain were disrupted as a result of a strike by rail and port workers. Truck drivers also continued to block major roads in the north and west of the country in protest against the controversial labor reforms.
France has been the scene of often violent protests against the Socialist government’s planned changes to the country’s labor law.
Paris says the proposed labor reforms focus on maximum working hours, holidays as well as breaks, and are aimed at curbing the country's unemployment rate.
Protesters and workers’ unions, however, say the government wants to make it easier and less costly for employers to lay off workers.
The draft labor bill, which includes a loosening of the maximum 35-hour working week and a cap on redundancy payments, was recently forced through the lower house of parliament, but it must be debated in the Senate.
Macron warns Beijing of tariffs in bid for EU-China trade deal
EU targeting platforms that refuse to ‘censor free speech’: Telegram CEO
Niger accuses French nuclear giant Orano of ‘mass crimes’
Ukraine says it strikes Russian ‘shadow fleet’ in Mediterranean
Hamas condemns ‘brutal’ Israeli attack on Gaza school
At least 1.6 million in Gaza face ‘acute food insecurity,’ IPC warns
Man convicted of spying for Mossad executed in Iran
VIDEO | Qunaitra residents protest Israeli violations in Syria
UN chief condemns rising Israeli settler violence in occupied West Bank
Use and throw: As US foreign policy priorities shift and Europe falters, Ukraine pays the price
VIDEO | Press TV's news headlines
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
