Since

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

was elected

President of France The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is the supreme magistracy of the country, the po ...

on 7 May 2017, a series of protests have been conducted by trade union activists, left-wing activists and right-wing activists in opposition to what protesters consider to be

neoliberal Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...

policies and

globalism Globalism has multiple meanings. In political science, it is used to describe "attempts to understand all of the interconnections of the modern world—and to highlight patterns that underlie (and explain) them". While primarily associated wit ...

, his support of state visits by certain world leaders, his positions on

French labour law French labour law is the system of labour law operating in France. History During the French Revolution, the '' Le Chapelier Law 1791'' was passed to prohibit unions or guilds and strikes in particular, with a proclamation of "free enterprise". ...

reform, as well as various comments or policy proposals he has made since assuming the presidency. According to

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, French authorities have used the

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state before, during, o ...

, which was in effect from the

November 2015 Paris attacks A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-De ...

until November 2017, to suppress protests, employing their emergency powers. They "imposed 639 measures preventing specific individuals participating in public assemblies. Of these, 574 were targeted at those protesting against proposed labour law reforms".

Post-election

On 8 May 2017, only a few hours after Macron was announced the winner of the

2017 French presidential election Presidential elections were held in France on 23 April and 7 May 2017. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he wo ...

, union protesters began clashing with French authorities in Paris under fears that Macron's economic program would take away

workers' rights Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, ...

. The protest was organised by "Social Front", which had already staged protests before the second round to protest the two frontrunners,

Marine Le Pen Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician of the far-right National Rally, National Rally party (RN). She served as the party's president from 2011 to 2021, and ran for the French presidency in ...

and

. One specific protest organized by the Social Front had 950 to 1,500 protesters with individuals trying to occupy publicly owned buildings like a railway station in

Rennes Rennes (; ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in Northwestern France at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the Brittany (administrative region), Brittany Regions of F ...

. Nearly 150 protesters were arrested after reports of missiles being thrown at the police and mass vandalism being done. The 8 May protest was supported by the CGT and SUD unions.

Protests

2017

After Macron was inaugurated on 15 May 2017, there were numerous warnings from Labour unions about the prospect of a large organized protest. The CGT Union has attempted numerous times to organise a large-scale demonstration against Macron with one taking place on 12 September 2017. Macron has actively tried to prevent this by opening Labor code reform negotiations with trade unions. The reception among the unions has been mixed with the head of the FO union supporting the negotiations, the

CFDT The French Democratic Confederation of Labour (, CFDT) is a national trade union center, one of the five major French confederations of trade unions, led since 2023 by . It is the second largest French trade union confederation by number of memb ...

deciding to stay neutral, not participating in the 12 September protests and the CGT denouncing the negotiations alongside its ally

SUD Sud or SUD may refer to: Places * Sud (Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg constituency), a constituency in Luxembourg * Sud (department), an administrative subdivision of Haiti * Sud Department (Ivory Coast), defunct administrative subdivision of ...

Jean-Luc Mélenchon Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Mélenchon (; born 19 August 1951) is a French politician who has been the ''de facto'' leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) since it was established in 2016. He was the Deputy (France), deputy in the National Assembly ( ...

from ''

La France Insoumise La France Insoumise (LFI or FI; , ) is a left-wing political party in France. It was launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former co-president of the Left Party (PG). It aims to implement th ...

'' has spoken in support of the 12 September protest encouraging members to attend. Mélenchon himself organized a protest on 12 July 2017. In response to the protests, Macron supported their right to peacefully protest. However, he told the protesters that he would "not yield anything, either to the lazy, the cynics or the extremes." The turnout to the September 12 anti-Macron protests was lower than the turnout to the pro-labour demonstrations against President Hollande the year prior. US President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's state visit to France during Bastile Day was met with protests, protesters gathered around

Place de la République The Place de la République (; English: Republic Square; known until 1879 as the Place du Château d'Eau, ) is a square in Paris, located on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements. The square has an area of .Warner, p. 250 ...

to create a "No Trump Zone". Protesters were reportedly protesting about the Trump visit and Macron's policies; with the ranks of the protesters being made up of socialists, pro-Palestinian groups, migrants' rights activists, environmentalists and

anti-fascists Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were op ...

. Despite mass protests, 59% of French people approve of Trump's visit. Following Prime Minister

Édouard Philippe Édouard Charles Philippe (; born 28 November 1970) is a French politician serving as Mayor (France), mayor of Le Havre since 2020, previously holding the office from 2010 to 2017. He was Prime Minister of France from 15 May 2017 to 3 July 202 ...

's announcement of the plans for immigration reform, a small protest was led by a group of LGBT activists in Paris holding up a sign reading "Macron starves migrants, queers without borders" A series of protests by wine producers in the South of France have been ongoing since

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. Before his presidency, he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (France), First Secretary of th ...

's presidency. These demonstrations generally involve arson,

sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, government, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, demoralization (warfare), demoralization, destabilization, divide and rule, division, social disruption, disrupti ...

and assault. These protests are caused by the importation of wine rather than buying it from French producers and the loss of culture. These protests have led to a 25% decrease in sales for Spanish wine producers. Spanish tankers transporting wine are usually the target of these attacks. Pro-Palestinian protesters began to demonstrate against Macron offering Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu a place at the Paris Holocaust Ceremony. The French Communist Party also opposed Netanyahu's visit. The organizers of the protest were unknown but ''Le Muslim Post,'' a religious radioshow promoted the demonstration, encouraging listeners to attend.

23 March 2018

200,000 rallied against Macron nationwide.

19 April 2018

Tens of thousands of striking rail workers, public sector staff and students rallied across France against President Emmanuel Macron. The

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

and CGT were the major unions in the protests against plans by Macron to remove job-for-life guarantees and pension privileges for new recruits.

13 May 2018

Transport workers continued to protest against rampant privatisation efforts in France. Key

services were reduced on Sunday.

26 May 2018

A day after the Emmanuel Macron "suggested he could be close to victory in a public battle over his reform agenda," several thousands people across France, led by CGT trade union and some 80 other organizations protested against Macron's reforms of the public sector, described by the organizers as imbalanced and "brutal." According to CGT 80,000 people participated in the protest in Paris, and 250,000 came out across the country. However, France Police said that 21,000 people participated in the Paris protests and that 35 protesters were detained for various "offences". Police fired tear gas and deployed 2000 officers to the event and the demonstrators were holding placards reading "Stop Macron!".

Yellow Vests protests

In October 2018, Macron announced that the

carbon tax A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon emissions from producing goods and services. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the hidden Social cost of carbon, social costs of carbon emissions. They are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emis ...

would rise in 2019. This was seen as a move crippling the rural class who had no other choice than to use the car and could not afford more expensive fuel. On 17 November 2018, protests occurred in most major cities, and highways were blocked. Protests started again next Saturday and are still occurring on every Saturday as of June 2019. This movement is noticed for having no official leader and its independence, in spite of appropriation attempts by the France Insoumise (Unsubmitted France) and the Rassemblement National (National Rally) parties.

5 December 2019

A general strike to

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

changes to France's

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

system proposed by French President

. More than 800,000 people protested across the country.

Protests 2020–2021

Thousands of protesters marched peacefully in a small group against the legislative bill that will criminalise the publish & circulation of the photograph of police office, which the opponent says would limit the press freedom. The protest is also organised to show the anger over the footage where a music producer a black man, being beaten by three police officers in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

on 21 November 2020. Some small group of masked protesters dressed in black, burnt down two cars, a motorcycle and a cafe and smashed the windows of the local shops. In response police fired tear gases and stun grenades to disperse the crowd. They also used fired water cannon. The interior ministry said that 46,000 protesters participated in the protest in Paris and nine were arrested.

COVID-19 protests

Numerous protests took place in 2021 following the introduction of health passes to enter certain public venues during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The measures were introduced by Macron's government to increase uptake of COVID-19 vaccination in France.

2022 French presidential election protests

On 16 April, after Macron's victory in the first round of presidential voting, left wing demonstrators clashed with police. French security forces fired tear gas as the anti right-wing demonstrators marched, before allowing the protests to resume. On 24 April, after Macron's victory in the second round of presidential voting, protests broke out in many departments. In the area of Châtelet, riot police charged and sprayed tear gas on demonstrators. Students protested outside of the Sorbonne, expressing their disillusionment of the lack of choice in second round voting.

Autumn 2022 protests

On 16 October 2022 tens of thousands marched in Paris in protests of rising

cost of living The cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living for an individual or a household. Changes in the cost of living over time can be measured in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare t ...

at an inflation rate of more than 6%. Concomitantly there have been labor strikes at oil refineries and nuclear plants causing gas shortages.

2023

A day of strikes and demonstrations took place throughout

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

against the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

's pension reform project, which proposes to raise the

retirement age This article lists the statutory retirement age in different countries. In some contexts, the retirement age is the age at which a person is expected or required to cease work. It is usually the age at which such a person may be entitled to recei ...

to 64. Some are calling this the “Second French Revolution” as public services began strikes and workers quit their jobs.

2024

Following the

National Rally The National Rally (, , RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (, , FN), is a French far-right politics, far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and French nationalism, nationalist. It is the single largest Nat ...

(RN) party's victory in 2024 European parliament elections and the resulting dissolution of parliament and snap elections called by Emmanuel Macron, several unions and left-leaning party organizations called for demonstrations across several cities in France, as well as for creating coalitions between left-leaning and far left political parties to prevent National Rally or Macron's party from achieving victory in French parliament. While the protests primarily centered around resisting RN policies, most also voiced their disapproval with Macron's policies and attempts to temper civil disobedience with slogans such as "Macron-Bardella, same fight”, and “We are here even if Macron does not want it”. The CGT, who helped rally protests, released a press statement citing reasons for the protest that included opposition to the "policies of Emmanuel Macron".

References