Paris police cleared Constitutional Council of protesters’ barricades – Reports

Paris:Law enforcement officers have cleared the Constitutional Council building located in the center of Paris of the demonstrators who had blocked it early in the morning as a protest against the pension reform, a Sputnik correspondent reported on Thursday.
That morning, several protesters blocked the Constitutional Council building in the 1st District of Paris. Videos posted on social media showed trash bins moved to its entrance and hand flares set alight by the protesters.
However, the protest was over after a short time. There are no more activists near the building, the trash bins have been pulled from the entrance and a police car is guarding the Council, the Sputnik reporter said.
Earlier in the day, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin forbade any protests near the Council building before it renders the final ruling on the pension reform, the BFMTV channel reported.
The 12th nationwide protest against the controversial pension reform is currently taking place in France, gathering some 600,000 people, according to authorities. On April 14, the French Constitutional Council will vote on whether the bill complies with current national legislation. If it is approved, the law will go into effect on September 1.
On March 16, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that the government had adopted a law on raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030 by invoking Article 49.3 of the constitution, which allowed the bill to get passed without parliamentary approval. The decision sparked a strong backlash, prompting people to take to the streets across the country.