France faces more protests against looming budget cuts
Paris - Demonstrators in more than 240 locations around France are due to stage more protests and strikes on Thursday, the CGT union said, to demand the government scraps looming budget cuts.
President Emmanuel Macron and newly appointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who is still working to form a cabinet, are under pressure to bring the finances under control in the euro zone's second largest economy.
But union leaders, including those from the hardline CGT and France's largest union, the CFDT, want more spending on public services, higher taxes on the wealthy and the scrapping of a change to state pensions.
"First of all, what we want to know is who the government will be ... And then we want to know what the budget will be, and if there are any setbacks in the budget, obviously we won't let it pass," CGT secretary general Sophie Binet told BFM TV.
Students carrying flares were already blocking the entrance to a high school in Paris, with police at the scene, as protests got under way.
More protests were expected in Paris and other cities including Dijon, Metz, Poitiers and Montpellier.
Around 76,000 police officers are due to be deployed, with about 5,000 in the Paris region, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told BFM.
The government faced protests and strikes in September, when hundreds of thousands of people including teachers, train drivers, pharmacists and hospital staff protested against France's proposed 2026 budget, and teenagers blocked dozens of high schools for hours.
France's budget deficit last year was close to double the EU's 3% ceiling. Lecornu will face a battle to gather parliamentary support for a budget for 2026.
Parties broadly agree on the need to slash the deficit, which reached 5.8% of GDP in 2024, but not on how to do it.
His predecessor, Francois Bayrou, was ousted by parliament on September 8 over his plan for a 44-billion-euro ($51.70 billion) budget squeeze. Lecornu has not yet said what he will do with Bayrou's plans.
($1 = 0.8511 euros)
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Makini Brice and Alison Williams)
