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| youth aims at a bank branch in Lyon AP image: Michel Spingler |
PARIS (AP) – Protesters blockaded Marseille’s airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon on Thursday ahead of a tense Senate vote on raising the retirement age.
A quarter of the nation’s gas stations were out of fuel despite President Nicolas Sarkozy’s orders to force open depots barricaded by striking workers.
Gasoline shortages and violence on the margins of student protests have heightened the standoff between the government and labor unions who see retirement at 60 as a hard-earned right.
New violence broke out in Lyon, as police chased rampaging youths who overturned a car and hurled bottles. Riot officers tried to subdue the violence with tear gas. A gendarme helicopter circled overhead.
“It is not troublemakers who will have the last word in a democracy,” Sarkozy told local officials in central France, promising to find and punish rioters.
Students barricaded a Paris high school and planned protests nationwide Thursday, as the Senate wraps up protracted debate on a reform that Sarkozy calls crucial to his presidency.
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