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PROTESTS

Over 100,000 protest in France against new prime minister

More than 100,000 left-wing demonstrators rallied across France on Saturday to protest against the nomination of the centre-right Michel Barnier as prime minister and denounce President Emmanuel Macron's "power grab".

Published: 8 September 2024 07:33 CEST
A protester holds a placard against newly appointed France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier during a rally to demonstrate against the French President's
A protester holds a placard against newly appointed France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier during a rally to demonstrate against the French President's "forceful blow" two months after the legislative elections, in Paris on September 7, 2024. (Photo by Thibaud MORITZ / AFP)

The interior ministry said 110,000 people took to the streets nationwide, including 26,000 in Paris, while one leading left-winger put the turnout across France at 300,000.

Rallies took place in cities across France including Nantes in the west, Nice and Marseille in the south and Strasbourg in the east.

Macron on Thursday appointed Barnier, a 73-year-old former foreign minister who acted as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, as prime minister, seeking to move forward after snap elections in which his centrist alliance came second.

Barnier said on Friday that he was open to naming ministers of all political stripes, including “people from the left”.

But a left-wing coalition, which emerged as France’s largest political bloc after the June-July elections, although short of an overall majority, has denounced Macron’s appointment of Barnier.

READ ALSO: What happens next now that France has a new PM?

The alliance wanted Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old economist, to become prime minister, but Macron quashed that idea, arguing that she would not survive a confidence vote in the hung parliament.

On Saturday, many demonstrators directed their anger at Macron, 46, and some called on him to resign.

‘Old elephant’ 

“The Fifth Republic is collapsing,” said 21-year-old protester Manon Bonijol, referring to France’s current system of government.

“Expressing one’s vote will be useless as long as Macron is in power,” she added.

Protesters climbs on the statue 'Le Triomphe de la Republique' at Place de la Nation

Protesters climb on the statue ‘Le Triomphe de la Republique’ at Place de la Nation in Paris on September 7, 2024. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose France Unbowed party (LFI) and allies belong to the left-wing bloc, had called for people to take to the streets, arguing that the election had been “stolen from the French”.

On Saturday, he urged supporters to prepare for battle.

“There will be no pause,” he vowed.

“Democracy isn’t just the art of accepting that you’ve won, it’s also the humility of accepting that you’ve lost,” Melenchon said at the Paris march.

Project manager Alexandra Germain, 44, accused Macron of riding roughshod over the wishes of voters.

“Demonstrating is my only way of saying that I don’t agree, even if I am well aware that it is useless,” said Germain.

Abel Couaillier, a 20-year-old student, said he was stunned by the appointment of Barnier whom he called an “old elephant”.

“I am still young, I want to believe that we can change things,” added Couaillier.

Leading LFI figure Mathilde Panot claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that 160,000 demonstrators had protested in Paris and 300,000 people across France.

Police said five people had been detained in Paris.

‘Under surveillance’ 

Marine Le Pen, who leads far-right National Rally (RN) lawmakers in parliament, has said her party will not be part of the new cabinet, and that she will wait for Barnier’s first policy speech in parliament before deciding whether or not to back him.

“Barnier is a prime minister under surveillance,” said RN party president Jordan Bardella on Saturday.

READ MORE: What does a French Prime Minister actually do?

“I am under the surveillance of all French people,” said Barnier, on the sidelines of a visit to the Necker children’s hospital in Paris.

Barnier will be in charge of the budget, security, immigration and healthcare.

He will have to take into account the interests of the National Rally — the single-largest party in a fragmented legislature — if he wants to avoid a motion of no-confidence in parliament.

Barnier — who is likely to have only minority support in the National Assembly — faces the urgent task of presenting the 2025 budget by early October.

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PARIS

Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming ’15-minute cities’

Paris and Milan are among the cities closest to reaching the urban planning goal of being a "15-minute city," while car-dependent metropolises in the United States and elsewhere lag behind, a worldwide analysis said on Monday.

Published: 16 September 2024 17:29 CEST
Paris and Milan: Closest in the world to becoming '15-minute cities'

In fact, the central areas of many cities already meet the definition of a 15 minute-city, which means that residents are within a quarter-hour walk or bike ride from everything they need to a lead a good life, the analysis found.

But even within a city, there are often stark differences between the wealthy inner cities and the urban sprawl on their outskirts, according to the Italian researchers behind the new study.

The concept of the 15-minute city gained traction during the Covid pandemic, when lockdowns put more focus on local neighbourhoods.

It has since been embraced by dozens of mayors around the world — and become the target of conspiracy theorists online.

For the new study, published in the journal Nature Cities, the researchers built an online database looking at roughly 10,000 cities globally.

They used open source data to map out how far of a walk or cycle residents were from different services, including shops, restaurants, education, exercise and healthcare.

“A lot of people already live in a 15-minute city,” study co-author Hygor Piaget Monteiro Melo told AFP.

But it depends on where you look within a city, he said, because of the inequality in access to services between the centre and periphery.

No ‘utopia’

What is clear, the researchers noted, is that population density is a crucial factor — if enough people are living close enough to each other, it is much easier for them to have easy access to services.

This meant that somewhat smaller yet relatively dense cities such as Italy’s Milan or Spain’s Barcelona scored well on their map, which was made available online.

When it came to the biggest cities, “Paris is an outlier,” lead study author Matteo Bruno told AFP.

The mayor of Paris embraced the concept in 2020, and a “considerable fraction” of the city is below the 15-minute mark, the study said.

Some European cities have a head start because they were built centuries ago at a time before cars — when basically all towns had to be 15-minute cities, the researchers said.

Cities built more recently with cars specifically in mind — particularly in the United States — fared far less well on the map.

Atlanta in particular stood out as being a long way from being a 15-minute city. Future Olympic host Los Angeles also lagged behind most others for walkability, as did several Chinese cities including Chongqing.

But when it comes to cities, there are always trade-offs — and there is no single right answer, the researchers said.

“The 15-minute city is often presented as a utopia — it’s not,” Bruno said.

Americans in sprawled-out cities usually have their own houses and backyards, while Europeans in densely populated cities tend to live in apartments, illustrating the important role played by culture, Bruno said.

And central parts of US cities such as New York, San Francisco and Milwaukee were under the 15-minute threshold.

“Manhattan is definitely one of the most 15-minute places ever in the world,” said Bruno, a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Rome.

‘Conspiracy mongers’

There has been confusion about the concept in the past, the researchers lamented.

For example, “traffic has nothing to do with the 15-minute city,” Bruno said.

In fact, slow traffic could indicate an area is more pedestrian friendly, he added.

Yet it was new “low-traffic zones” in the UK that turned the ire of conspiracy theorists towards 15-minute city proponents.

Confusing the two ideas, online groups including vaccine and climate sceptics falsely claimed that 15-minute cities were part of a secret plot to restrict the movement of citizens.

The Italian researchers, who have themselves been targeted by “Twitter haters,” emphasised that nothing about the 15-minute city concept involves confining anyone.

Researcher Carlos Moreno, a high-profile proponent of 15-minute cities who has advised Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, was also “attacked by the worldwide conspiracy mongers,” he told AFP.

Moreno welcomed the new study, praising how the idea had swiftly become a topic of interest for researchers around the world.

Just last week, Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing head of the greater Paris Ile-de-France area, presented a plan for a 20-minute region, he pointed out.

Bruno said that the 15-minute metric is just one element in the “recipe” that makes a good city.

Other parts of the recipe include tackling inequality and segregation, improving public transport, reducing traffic and so on, he said.

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