Man has his hand blown off by grenade in brutal police crackdown …
A protester's hand in France was blown off by a grenade during some of the fiercest protests the country has ever seen. May Day is usually a worldwide celebration of labour rights, but this year's rallies saw people walk out in outrage at their conditions. Around 800,000 people protested across France in a fresh display of fury against French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms.
A 28-year-old protester in Nantes was being treated after reportedly having his hand blown off by a stun grenade. Macron is seeking to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 and organisers see pension reform as a threat to hard-fought worker rights, while Macron argues it's economically necessary as the population ages. Laurent Berger, head of the CFDT, France's largest union, called it "historic", the biggest in 30 years, and proof that this was no "swan song" for their continued protest movement.
Paris police officers set on fire as millions take to the streets in protest[1]
Police officers walk past a fire set by protesters during a demonstration on May Day (AFP via Getty Images)
A Paris police officer was seriously injured by a Molotov cocktail and among 108 officers injured around France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
"Violence is increasingly strong in a society that is radicalising," the interior minister said on BFM-TV news station, blaming the ultra-left. He said some 2,000 radicals were at the Paris march. Footage showed grenades hitting police officers in Paris, with one officer falling unconscious.
'Violence is increasingly strong in a society that is radicalising' (Lafargue Raphael/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock)
One protester, Jean-Louis Petraud, a retired state education worker, said to the Telegraph[2]: "I don't condone violence but I understand it.
"Macron only knows how to be contemptuous. Whenever he talks to people, he looks down on them, like they're fools. It is King Macron, in the pay of Europe and big money."
Marine Le Pen, head of the populist National Rally party, accused Mr Macron of "feeding the temptation of street violence". She said: "He wanted to put the country on the march, he broke it down. Rarely has a president been so disconnected, so lonely, so besieged, but still so arrogant.
Rarely has a government been ghostly, vaporous and transparent."
May Day protests in Paris, France (Lafargue Raphael/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock)
Meanwhile, May Day protests were seen across the whole globe. South Koreans pleaded for higher wages as did others around Latin America. Spanish lawyers demanded the right to take days off.
Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon marched in a country plunged into an economic crisis.
AP reports that celebrations were forced indoors in Pakistan, tinged with political tensions as in Turkey, as both countries face high-stakes elections.