During the ninth day of stormy protests in France, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, dissatisfied with the reform of the pension system, 457 demonstrators were arrested. As a result of clashes between protesters and law enforcement agencies, 441 policemen and gendarmes were injured, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday, citing AFP.

Invited to the Cnews station, the minister also said that during Thursday’s demonstration in Paris, “903 pieces of urban furniture or garbage cans” were set on fire.

“Extreme leftists want to attack the Republic”

Like the head of the Paris police, the interior minister insisted on the “radicalization” of the demonstrators and the violence of the “extreme left”.

• “The extreme left wants to attack the Republic,” Darmanin said, realizing that a “collective message of condemnation” is needed.

He was surprised by the lack of reaction from politicians to the number of injured policemen and gendarmes, “about a thousand” since the beginning of the movements opposing the pension reform. Darmanin believes that there is a “national sport, which consists in smearing policemen and gendarmes.”

• “The country must wake up and condemn extreme leftists and agitators. They are few, but extremely cruel,” he added.

On the other hand, the minister emphasized the “powerful” work of the law enforcement forces to “prevent death,” writes AFP, reports Agerpres. the case of a seriously injured protester in Rouen under unclear circumstances.

French workers outraged by President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 took to the streets again on Thursday in another day of nationwide protests – the ninth – that turned violent.