Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vests) hurled abuse at Emmanuel Macron as he walked with his wife, Brigitte, on Bastille Day in a public garden in Paris, prompting calls from opposition leaders for increased security.
Demonstrators confronted the French president and his wife, Brigitte, as they walked with bodyguards in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on Tuesday.
In a video on the gilets jaunes Facebook page, what appears to be a few dozen protesters boo and shout “Macron demission!” (Macron resign) as they surround the presidential party, many filming on their phones.
“It’s incredible, we’ve stumbled upon the thorn in our side,” one protester is heard saying.
While security guards look on, Macron engages in a close encounter with the agitated men, who wave fingers in his face while complaining about economic inequality and heavy-handed policing of protests.
Neither Macron nor the demonstrators in the video were wearing face masks, recommended for preventing coronavirus contagion. The heated exchange lasted about six minutes.
“It poses a real security problem,” Christian Jacob, the head of the opposition rightwing party, the Republicans, told French television. “How can the president of the republic take such risks?”
The leftwing leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said Macron should have been more “cautious” as “a president walking in the Tuileries where there are so many people should expect to come across detractors”.
But a government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, said on Wednesday the incident underlined Macron’s “absolute openness to dialogue”, pointing out that his opponents often criticised him for being too distant from the people. “The president of the republic can leave the Elysee [the presidential residence], and fortunately so,” Attal said.
In the video, Macron is seen repeatedly urging the group confronting him to “be cool”, while taking time to listen to some of their complaints.
He said he understood their “feeling of injustice”. In response to complaints about alleged police abuses, he pointed out that “there are also violent people among yourselves”.
“This is a public holiday [Bastille Day], I am taking a walk with my wife, and you are heckling me,” Macron tells one of them.
According to an official count, about 2,500 demonstrators and 1,800 law enforcement agents have been injured in the weekly gilets jaunes protests, which began in November 2018. The protests had largely faded by the summer of 2019, though sporadic protests drawing much smaller crowds have continued.
The rallies, which started as a protest against a loss of spending power and Macron’s perceived contempt for ordinary people, often sparked confrontations and riots. Activists say two dozen civilians have lost an eye from police used rubber bullets, and five have lost a hand to stun grenades.
