French Left Stages Street Showdown Over Macron Reforms to Labor Code

Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied to a call Saturday by firebrand leftist politician Jean-Luc Melenchon to join a protest in Paris against President Emmanuel Macron's sweeping reforms of the labor code.

Melenchon was leading the march through the streets of the French capital on a bright sunny afternoon, with the crowd shouting "resistance, resistance" and no to "a social coup d'etat", AFP reported.

It marks the third in a series of nationwide protests after Macron signed his landmark reforms into law using a fast-tracked procedure that avoided a lengthy parliamentary debate. The changes to the labor code, which runs to around 3,400 pages in some editions, give small businesses more flexibility to negotiate pay and conditions with their staff, instead of being bound by national agreements.

They also make it easier to lay off employees and cap compensation awards for unfair dismissal while also giving higher payouts to workers made redundant. Macron argues the changes —the cornerstone of his program aimed at boosting entrepreneurship— will help bring down stubbornly high unemployment of 9.6 percent.

Melenchon's hard-left France Unbowed party has accused Macron of unraveling decades of hard-won social gains.