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Supporters of social media-driven movement "Nuit Debout" (Rise up at Night), gather in Paris against the French labor law proposal. | Photo: Reuters |
Dozens of #40mars occupations are organized across the continent on Saturday, the tenth day of the Paris-based movement.
France’s growing Nuit Debout protests, likened to Occupy Wall Street and the Indignados movement, is calling for occupations across Europe to demand financial justice in each country and in the European Union.
The
group’s Facebook page lists events in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain
and Portugal — 24 in France and nine outside — responding to the message
on its website that, “This movement was not born and will not die in
Paris.”
Nuit Debout grew out of massive protests
in March against sweeping pro-business reforms in France, with a group
of students, unions, migrants and other protesters occupying the central
Place de la Republique.
The
Saturday occupations are organized under the name #40mars — or March 40
— adding ten days since the first day of Nuit Debout, March 31.
On
Thursday, Parisians stopped police from evacuating migrants and marched
to Société Générale [a French multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Paris] to protest its prominent role in tax evasion
schemes, as revealed by the Panama Paper leaks.
“The
debates taking place in the assemblies on Republic square [Place de la République] prove that
the general exasperation goes way beyond the Labour Law and opens a more
global issue: the reconsideration of a social and political system
stuck into a deep crisis and on its way out,” reads the call for
international protest.
While France will focus on the labor law’s “shock strategy, notably imposed in the context of an authoritarian state of emergency,”
other countries are calling for non-political occupations to serve as
social forums on economic policy. Britain’s protest, though, will
largely echo calls for Prime Minister David Cameron to resign over his defense of his father’s offshore trust.
Source: Telesur
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