Striking railway workers invade French luxury group LVMH's headquarters on Thursday, Paris time. Photo / Lewis Joly, AP
Striking railway workers invade French luxury group LVMH's headquarters on Thursday, Paris time. Photo / Lewis Joly, AP
Protesters in Paris stormed the headquarters of luxury giant LVMH on the same day shares in the company jumped to a record high.
The world’s richest man Bernard Arnault owns LVMH, which includes Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Christian Dior, Givenchy, TAG Heuer, and Bulgari.
Yesterday, protesters opposing President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64 marched in cities and towns around France, in a show of anger before a crucial decision on whether the reform meets constitutional standards.
Police said some 380,000 people took part in the protests across France. The number was down from recent weeks, but unions still managed to mobilize sizable crowds.
Demonstrators targeted the Central Bank offices in Paris before briefly invading the headquarters of LVMH.
Protesters watch a burning car during a demonstration on Thursday in Rennes, western France. Photo / Mathieu Pattier, AP
Fabien Villedieu of the Sud-Rail Union said LVMH “could reduce all the holes” in France’s social security system.
“So one of the solutions to finance the pension system is a better redistribution of wealth, and the best way to do that is to tax the billionaires,” he told The Associated Press.
Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH, “is the richest man in the world so he could contribute,” Villedieu said.
Luxury tycoon Arnault’s wealth soared to US$210 billion (NZ$333b) this week, Bloomberg reported.
Security forces intervened to stop vandals along the Paris march route, with 36 people detained, police said.
Protesters march during a demonstration on Thursday in Lille, northern France. Photo / Michel Spingler, AP
Like in past protests, several hundred “radical elements” had mixed inside the march, police said.
Thousands also marched in Toulouse, Marseille and elsewhere. Tensions mounted at protests in Brittany, notably in Nantes and Rennes, where a car was burned.
But their attention increasingly centered on the Constitutional Council, which is to decide on Friday whether to scrap any or all parts of the legislation.
Activists dumped bags of garbage outside the council’s columned façade in the morning.
Later, another crowd holding flares faced off with a large contingent of riot police that rushed to protect the building.
