LEILA FADEL, HOST:
France's newest prime minister has barely taken office and there have already been wide-scale protests against him. Demonstrators are also angry at his boss, President Emmanuel Macron, who lost his majority in legislative elections last year but is continuing his politics as usual. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley sent this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Non-English language spoken).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Public sector workers walked off the job and took to the streets Thursday. Unions say more than 1 million turned out across France. In Paris, train drivers called to make the strike open-ended.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
BEARDSLEY: Teachers went on strike, and students blocked their high schools in solidarity with workers. Eighteen-year-old senior Mila Schenk says they're against plans for an austerity budget.
MILA SCHENK: That wants to cut the Social Security system, that wants to cut in health and in education, which would only weigh heavy on the people that are already vulnerable.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BEARDSLEY: Macron lost his last two prime ministers in no confidence votes in Parliament. Far left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon says the newest premier, conservative former defense minister and Macron loyalist Sebastien Lecornu, is headed for the same fate.
JEAN-LUC MELENCHON: (Through interpreter) The prime minister has to go. But the president does, too, because he's responsible for all this. Normally, in a democracy, when you lose elections and prime ministers, you pay a price.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
BEARDSLEY: The left and the far right, which control the biggest blocs in Parliament, are both demanding a premiere from their camp. There were some 250 demonstrations across France. In a small town in Burgundy, workers and retirees wound through the old city carrying union flags. Thirty-seven-year-old Gaelle Godard (ph) held a sign that read Macron is denying democracy.
GAELLE GODARD: So for one year now, we've been facing new prime minister, and they were all not what we voted for, so that's a problem.
BEARDSLEY: Macron was elected as a centrist, but he only seems to have reinforced the political extremes. This crowd from the left hates his free market policies and says taxes should be raised on the super-rich. Retired history professor Edith Febvet (ph) calls Macron a president of the rich.
EDITH FEBVET: (Non-English language spoken).
BEARDSLEY: "We are at a point today where the rich have never been richer," she says. "There is no more sharing, so no more society, really." The far right did not protest this time, but party leader Marine Le Pen also says the new prime minister's days are numbered.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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