The Olympic Games came to France a year early and this anarchist won the 100 metres gold medal
Channel: Perseus999
Date: 30/03/2023

The Olympic Games came to France a year early and this anarchist, outrunning a riot cop, won the 100 metres gold medal in the city of Besançon during the protest of March 28, 2023 against Macron's pension-reform that raised  the retirement age to the age of 64. According to photojournalist Emma Audrey that recorded the video, the cop was unable to catch up with the protester and the latter managed to escape. 

The high turnout in protests in smaller french towns and cities has been a striking feature of France’s biggest protest movement in several decades. While national and international media tend to focus on the mass marches staged in Paris, turnout has often been higher – proportionally – in other parts of the country.

The reason behind this lies in the fact that these mass protests and riots are   not just about pensions. It's about poverty, job insecurity and the dearth of public services in rural areas, where people feel abandoned by the State. Macron boasts about unemployment figures going down, but the truth is that more, and more people live on low paid and insecure jobs, particularly women. 

It has to be noted that in order to pass his pension reform, President Macron bypassed parliament by resorting to article 49.3 of the French constitution, a move that outraged people and fuelled the sentiment that Macron's policies should be fought in the streets.