At a time when around a million protestors have already marched in France against the new pension reforms, about 100 protestors, including representatives of several labour unions, invaded the central Paris building yesterday.??
This is the building in which the U.S.-based investment firm BlackRock has an office.?Protestors were chanting slogans and setting off firecrackers amid their protest against French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms.
Videos shared on social media showed?protesters?entering the Centorial office block, located near the Op¨¦ra Garnier opera house, holding flares and firing smoke bombs.
The union action in the historical Centorial building near Paris' Grand Boulevards area targeted the?world¡¯s biggest money management firm BlackRock because of its private pension fund activity, protester Fran?oise Onic, 51, said, as per Reuters report.
Loudly singing the French anti-pension reform protesters favourite slogan, "On est la" ("we are here"), the demonstrators left the building after about half an hour, leaving its large atrium filled with acrid smoke from the firecrackers.??
"The?government wants to throw away pensions, it wants to force people to fund their own?retirement?with?private pension funds, but what we know is that only the rich will be able to benefit from such a setup," Onic, a school teacher, added.??
The action came on the 11th day of nationwide union-organised strikes and demonstrations against the government's plan to increase the retirement age by two years to 64.
To know more about the pension reforms against which protests have erupted,?click here.
Unlike many other European countries in which pensions are at least partially financed by private pension funds, France has a system whereby the contributions of those who are currently working directly fund the pensions of those now in retirement.
"The meaning of this action is quite simple. We went to the headquarters of BlackRock to tell them: the money of workers, for our pensions, they are taking it," Jerome Schmitt, spokesman for French union SUD, said to CNN.
More than 9,60,000 people marched in Paris, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse, Nantes, and other cities in France in February this year, in a nationwide demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron¡¯s plans to reform the country¡¯s pension system.?
"If they're not able to listen to what's happening on the streets, and are not able to realize what is happening with the people, well they shouldn't be surprised that it blows up at some point," Delphine Maisonneuve, a 43-year-old nurse had said, as per Reuters report.
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