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TEHRAN (Iran News) –Union activists barged into the Paris headquarters of luxury goods company LVMH (LVMH.PA) on Thursday, saying the French government should shelve plans to make people work longer for their pension and tax the rich more instead.

In a 12th day of nationwide protests since mid-January, striking workers also disrupted garbage collections in Paris and blocked river traffic on part of the Rhine in eastern France.

“You’re looking for money to finance pensions? Take it from the pockets of billionaires,” said Sud Rail union leader Fabien Villedieu, as the LVMH headquarters filled with red smoke from flares. The protesters then left peacefully.
Trade unions urged a show of force on the streets a day before the Constitutional Council’s ruling on the legality of the bill that will raise the state pension age by two years to 64.

cross France, 380,000 demonstrators took part in Thursday’s protest, according to figures from the government. That number included 42,000 at the Paris demonstration.

Those figures were down from April 6, when 570,000 demonstrated across France, with 57,000 at last week’s Paris protest.

There were some clashes during Thursday’s rallies, including skirmishes in central Paris, with black-clad protesters throwing projectiles at police who responded with teargas, but this was nowhere near the level of violence seen at some protests last month.

Ten members of the police force were injured on Thursday, said the police department.

If the Council gives its approval, possibly with some caveats, the government will be entitled to promulgate the law, and will hope this will eventually put an end to protests, which have coalesced widespread anger against President Emmanuel Macron.

But protesters said they would keep up the fight if the Council gave a green light.

“We don’t want to work until 64,” 50-year-old teacher Kathy Brochard said at the Paris rally.

Protesters want the bill withdrawn – or put to a referendum.

“We still hope that, at some point, someone in high places will decide to abandon this law, sit around a table and look at pension funding differently,” 52-year-old postal service worker Francis Bourget said at the Paris rally.

The industrial action has lost some steam and the protests have rallied smaller crowds in recent weeks compared with turnouts of more than a million seen earlier in the movement.
But unions remained defiant.

“This is certainly not the last day of the strike,” Sophie Binet, the new leader of the hard-left CGT union, said at the blockade of an incinerator outside Paris.

Macron and his government argue the new law is needed to ensure that France’s generous pension system does not go bust.
Unions say this can be done by other means.

Macron has said he will organise a meeting with unions after the Council’s decision to work on other proposals – an initiative union leaders say will be short-lived if he is not ready to discuss withdrawing the pension legislation.

“After three months of mobilisation, I would lie if I told you that there is no fatigue. We are tired, but a mobilisation is like a marathon,” Sud Rail’s Villedieu said. “We won’t give up.”
Political observers say the widespread discontent over the government’s reform could have longer-term repercussions, including a possible boost for the far right.

“I’m not that optimistic about the Constitutional Council’s decision,” far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who opposes the pension legislation, told BFM TV. “But what do you want me to do? Burn cars? We’ll just tell the French: Vote for the National Rally.”

On the Rhine river, cargo traffic was disrupted after workers cut power at a waterway lock near the border with Germany and Switzerland, a union official told Reuters.

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Amid chants such as “say it loud say it clear – Tories are not welcome here” and “Tax the rich not the poor, we won’t take it anymore”, it became clear this government has all but lost its popularity with more and more reports emerging of party infighting.

As one former deputy prime minister, Damian Green warned, the Conservatives will lose the next general election if “we end up painting ourselves as the party of the rich” before admitting that this conference “is more difficult” than the many others he has attended over the past 40 years. This, after last week the government introduced very controversial tax cuts for the wealthiest in society while doing very little to improve the lives of the most vulnerable and vowing to crack down on strike action by trade unions.

A police escort was needed to guard the cabinet minister Jacob Rees Mogg as he made his way to the conference hall. The Business Secretary was heckled and chased by an angry crowd. Another MP, Michael Fabricant, was among other party members who required extra police officers for protection, amid reports he was attacked. Fabricant says the demonstrators “shouted abuse”.

One protester told local media that “since Liz Truss has taken office it seems that everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong. She’s so ideological with her beliefs. It seems she doesn’t care about anything else other than these tax cuts for the rich and where do they come from – public spending. Our transport will get worse; our NHS will get worse.”

“I think the mood of the country is changing. You look at polls. You see the mood of people. I think we’re going to be heard and hopefully we will see a General Election and kick them out.”

The People’s Assembly, is among the groups leading the protests alongside the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The People’s Assembly describes itself as a broad united national campaign against austerity, cuts and privatization in workplaces, community and welfare services, based on general agreement with the signatories.

The protest organizers said: “This is the first opportunity we have had to confront the new government and show the strength of feeling amongst working people.”

As millions of people are suffering from inflation, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a mini-budget which cut the highest rate of tax and removed the cap on bankers’ bonuses. The Tories are the party of the rich, and they are proud of it. Read our response to the budget.

“The Tories want to restart fracking, which had been abandoned in the face of public resistance and environmental concerns. They intend to continue their racist policy of sending refugees to Rwanda.”

“In response to the cost of living crisis and the government’s total lack of interest in how it is driving working people into destitution, the unions are resisting. The strikes on the railways have turned Mick Lynch (trade unionist and General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) into a popular hero and postal workers, telecoms workers and dockers are all involved in strike action.”

Prime Minister Liz Truss is trying her best to reassure her party and the public by acknowledging she should have done more to “lay the ground” for an economic plan that saw the pound fall to record lows, government borrowing costs soar and markets panicking.

Truss who has been in office for less than a month is already under intense pressure, as opinion polls suggest the public does not accept her pleas to support households during what is set to be a difficult winter and beyond amid an economic crisis.

Many economists have slammed her package of tax-cutting measures which will only benefit the rich while ensuring the poor continue to suffer from record inflation levels. Traders and investors have rejected her arguments in defense of the package as a reason for the falls in the pound and the increase in borrowing costs last week.

Even Conservative lawmakers worry the government package and the new Prime Minister’s first major policy in office will hurt their chances at the next general election due in 2024. Truss has not denied that the plan will require spending cuts for public services while refusing to commit to increasing financial benefits in line with rising inflation.

However, the most severe criticism is aimed at endorsing a tax cut plan for the wealthiest and who will pay for the borrowing. Critics say it essentially means the future generation will pay for the new package with their tax money on top of all the tax money that is going to the wars the UK has waged and is currently engaged in.

Truss is struggling to answer questions on whether scrapping some taxes would have to be paid for with cuts to public services.

Asked what she was doing to ease concerns in Britain about the impact of her plan on mortgages, loan, and rental costs, Truss said she understood the “worries” but defied any changes to help the poor. She said, “I do stand by the package we announced, and I stand by the fact that we announced it quickly because we had to act, but I do accept that we should have laid the ground better.”

Even one former minister, Michael Gove, rubbished the government’s plans to abolish the highest 45% level of income tax, hinting he might vote against it, and Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of Birmingham, said he would not have made that policy.

“It is going to be very, very difficult to argue it’s okay to reduce welfare payments when we are cutting taxes for the richest,” Gove told an event at the conference. In more signs of party infighting, Truss argued the decision on the top tax cut for the wealthy was taken by her finance minister, the chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.

There is now increasing concern of a return to government austerity measures after cabinet minister Simon Clarke warned of the “very large welfare state” and the need to “trim the fat”.

Again the government is being accused of going after the poor instead of focusing on the rich. Research shows the UK has an extremely high level of income inequality compared to other wealthy countries.

Critics argue the problem lies with the lack of democracy in the country’s electoral process. The public did not elect Liz Truss just like the public did not elect Boris Johnson to represent them. Truss was elected as prime minister by just 81,000 people who are Conservative Party members. She does not represent the British public.

And by the actions of the public in the home city of the Conservative Party, the British public do not want a Prime Minister who represents the rich and admits that it does not bother her if she is “not popular”.

In a fresh poll, Truss and the Tories’ approval ratings have again plummeted. The poll conducted by Opinium showed 55% of voters disapprove of the new prime minister and just 18% approve, which is worse than Boris Johnson’s final days in office. The survey came just before the Conservative Party conference kicked off.

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Responding to a question from Fars News on the protests over water shortages in the oil-rich, southwestern province of Khuzestan, the spokesman said Persian-speaking news organizations affiliated with foreign governments are seeking to undermine the unity and oneness of the Iranian nation.

“Of course, this is not their first effort in this regard and it will not be the last one. We are also aware of the comments by a U.S. State Department official [on Khuzestan protests],” Khatibzadeh told Fars News. “What is important is that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not let any country meddle in its internal affairs.”

“The government and officials are well aware of their duties towards the honorable people of Iran, and at the highest levels, they take care of the rightful demands of their citizens and try to eliminate the shortcomings,” he added.

The spokesman also called the stance of the United States and their claim of compassion for the human rights of the Iranian people “shameful” and stressed, “The U.S. regime itself is the direct cause of many of the sufferings that have been inflicted on the honorable people of Iran through conspiracies or oppressive sanctions.”

He noted, “The brave Khuzestan will never forget the crimes of Washington’s strategic partner, Saddam [Hussein] and the Ba’athist regime in Iraq.”

Khatibzadeh also condemned the U.S “hypocrisy” because of its insistence on continuing with the Trump administration’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran. Khatibzadeh said the Biden administration is following in Trump’s footsteps in terms of clinging to this campaign even though Trump has gone. “At the same time, they shed crocodile tears over the Iranian people’s human rights,” the spokesman said of the Biden administration.

Protests have erupted in several cities of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in recent days. Demonstrators called on local authorities to release waters stored behind the numerous dams on rivers flowing into Khuzestan plains and marshes, where hundreds of thousands of people make a living by tilling lands and raising water buffaloes and dairy cows among other livestock.

Earlier, Khatibzadeh also reacted to the “interventionist” and “politicized” statement of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the recent events in Khuzestan.
Khatibzadeh on Saturday described the commissioner’s statement on the recent events in Khuzestan province as regrettable, saying it was totally invalid and tainted with false accusations and incorrect information.
“The accusations have been made without considering the extensive efforts of the government, judiciary, security and media officials to alleviate the suffering of the people of this province and to resolve the existing problems, and that is the most important proof that the statement is politicized and invalid,” he added.

“In this respect, the high commissioner’s statement is more like a political declaration with a hostile tone than the words of an international human rights official,” Khatibzadeh noted.

The spokesman noted that making such unprofessional and biased comments on the management of Iran’s water resources is not within the scope of the commissioner’s responsibilities, and the institution under her responsibility does not have the authority and legitimacy to comment on this issue.

Khatibzadeh noted that the water crisis in Khuzestan is the result of a series of natural phenomena, especially this year’s drought, and a consequence of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Iran which have prevented the transfer of technology and investment in the water sector of Khuzestan.

“The question is why the commissioner has not yet, so blatantly, condemned the unlawful sanctions imposed by the United States against the Iranian nation which have led to the violation of many of the fundamental human rights of this honorable nation, and has just expressed a few short and weak sentences!”

It seems that the efforts by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to invent minorities and cause rift among the united nation of Iran are in line with the political program of a few specific governments whose enmity towards the Iranian nation is obvious, Khatibzadeh noted.

“These governments are the abusers of the lofty concept of human rights and the main proponents of anti-human rights political resolutions against the Islamic Republic of Iran at the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly,” added the Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Khatibzadeh stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran respects its citizens’ right to hold peaceful gatherings, and the country’s authorities at the highest level have acknowledged the existence of water problems in the region and the people’s right to peaceful protests.

He added that the presence of the police and law enforcement in such gatherings in order to prevent riots and damage to people and public property is legal and accepted in accordance with international norms and regulations.

“At the same time the martyrdom of one police officer and the injuries of others indicate the infiltration of foreign-affiliated elements into the ranks of the protesters that is aimed at inciting sedition and creating fake conflicts,” he added.

Several high-ranking officials also addressed the concerns of the protesters and vowed to soothe them. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called on government officials to seek solutions to the Khuzestan water problems in accordance with the latest instructions issued by Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in that regard.

“Some of the problems in this province have been reduced, and we hope that the rest of the problems will be alleviated with the presence of the first vice president and other officials. The settlement of the Khuzestan issues must continue according to yesterday’s directive of the Supreme Leader,” Rouhani said on Saturday.

Rouhani underlined the “special importance” of the protest-stricken province as a resource-rich border region. “These days, we witness problems weighing on the lives of the people of Khuzestan province in terms of water [shortages] and hot weather which has reduced the input of water dams. In general, the people have faced problems some of which have been reduced,” the president added.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution reacted to water protests in Khuzestan on Friday, underlining the legitimacy of the protesters’ demands.

“In the past seven, eight days, one of our concerns has been the issue of Khuzestan and the people’s water shortage problem in that area. It is really painful for us to see that despite the loyal people living in that province and with all the abundant natural resources in that area and with all the factories working there, the people have reached a point where they are dissatisfied with the shortage of water and sewage system,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to the khamenei.ir.

Ayatollah Khamenei noted, “Well, the people cannot be blamed and their problem should be addressed, as should have been addressed until now. If the necessary measures had been adopted in due time, this situation would definitely not have arisen for the people. Thankfully, various organizations – executive and non-executive – have involved themselves and are pursuing the matter seriously and when the next administration takes office, they should seriously deal with the matter.”

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Ayatollah Mohsen Haidari noted that one of the protestors was killed in the city of Shadegan while the other was shot dead in Kut Abdollah, a city on the outskirt of Ahwaz. The cleric did not name the victims but state media identified them as Mustafa Naimawi and Qassem Khuzeiri. Ayatollah Haidari said Naimawi and Khauzeiri were both killed by counter-revolutionary forces.

“Criminal people, affiliated with foreigners and counter-revolutionaries, have abused the people’s demands and shot at them and killed innocent people,” Ayatollah Haidari told Fars News on Monday.

Underlining that “counter-revolutionary groups do everything in their power to achieve their evil interests,” the senior cleric said, “These people are even willing to kill innocent people in order to achieve their interests.”

Protests have erupted in several cities of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in recent days. Demonstrators called on local authorities to release waters stored behind the numerous dams on rivers flowing into Khuzestan plains and marshes, where hundreds of thousands of people make a living by tilling lands and raising water buffaloes and dairy cows among other livestock.

The local authorities, however, complain that the region is suffering from a rarely seen drought that caused them to reduce the waters flowing into it.

Ayatollah Haidari said the demonstrators’ demands and concerns over water shortage are legitimate but called on them to act with care, insight, and vigilance so as not to create any grounds for the enemy to abuse them.

The cleric warned that the people’s rights would be destroyed if the Islamic Revolution is harmed and that the people should avoid “playing into the hands of the enemy.”

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As the Israeli army continues to pound residential areas in Gaza with air raids and artillery shells, far-right Israeli extremists step up their brutal campaign of lynching Palestinian Arabs who hold Israeli citizenship, thereby shattering oft-repeated Israeli propaganda that Israel is a democracy where all minorities enjoy human rights.

Over the past few days, with the outbreak of the ongoing flare-up between Gaza and Israel, several Palestinians were killed or severely injured by far-right Israeli gangs who called for slaughtering Palestinians. One of the most heart-breaking cases of harassment against Palestinians happened near Tel Aviv when a group of Jewish zealots attacked a man they believed to be an Arab.

Footage of the incident was aired on television Wednesday night. The shocking images show a man being forcibly removed from his car and beaten by a crowd of dozens until he lost consciousness, AFP reported, adding that the attack, broadcast by public broadcaster Kan, took place on the seafront promenade of Bat Yam, south of Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv.

“The victim of the lynching is seriously injured but stable,” Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital said in a statement, without revealing his identity.
In addition, Israeli terrorists smashed shops owned by Palestinians in the Green Line zone, a demarcation line separating Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 and those occupied in 1967.

The Associated Press reported that a group of black-clad Israelis smashed the windows of an Arab-owned ice cream shop in Bat Yam and ultranationalists could be seen chanting, “Death to Arabs!” on live television.

This hatred against an ethnic group that is supposed to be part of the Israeli people resulted in the killing by Jewish extremists of an Arab man in Lod, a city with both Jewish and Arab residents about 15 miles south of Tel Aviv. During a funeral for this man, angry protestors clashed with security forces. The deceased man died after Jewish extremists pelted his car with stones, prompting the so-called Israeli Arabs to hit back.

Yair Revivo, the mayor of Lod, described what happened in Lod as “civil war,” calling for the Israeli army to suppress Arabs. “An intifada [uprising] erupted in Lod, you have to bring in the army,” he said. The drama also involved the use of emergency powers by Israel over an Arab community for the first time since 1966.

The Lod outburst of anger revealed deeper grievances among the Arab community, which have long been buried deep under the Israeli propaganda about co-existence, according to Arab activists in Lod.

Ghassan Munayyer, a Lod-based activist, said the veneer of coexistence conceals deeper disparities, including in housing and infrastructure, comparing its Arab neighborhoods to “refugee camps,” according to the Associated Press.

“The Jews love saying there’s coexistence. They go out to eat in an Arab restaurant and they call it coexistence,” he said. “But they don’t see Arabs as equal human beings who have rights that they have to respect.”

The outbreak of communal clashes inside Israel caused Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to warn of civil war after the decades-long, pent-up frustrations among Israeli Arabs broke out in the way of clashes with security forces.

Rivlin, who failed to denounce his regime’s excessive use of violence against Palestinians, described the rioting in several Israeli cities as “senseless civil war.”

Israeli politicians have sought to put an end to this war by assuaging concerns over domestic extremism. But the war is unlikely to end anytime soon so long as Israel cold-bloodedly kills defenseless children and women in Gaza and desecrates places of sanctity for Muslims in Jerusalem (al-Quds) especially the al-Aqsa Mosque, which stands as the first Qiblah (direction of prayer) and the third-holiest site in Islam.

As Israel continues to cry foul at the rockets coming from the beleaguered Gaza, it’s worth noting that the latest round of violence began after Israel moved to evict Palestinian families from their ancestral homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, something that left the Palestinians with no option but to hit back.

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TEHRAN (Iran News) – Protests erupted against police when an officer fatally shot a young Black man after stopping his vehicle for a traffic violation on Sunday about 10 miles (16 km) from where George Floyd was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis last May.

As angry crowds swelled into the hundreds outside the Brooklyn Center Police Department building on Sunday night, officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets and lobbed flash bangs at protesters and let off clouds of chemical irritants, Reuters reported.

The man killed by police was identified by relatives and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Daunte Wright, 20. Walz said in a statement that he was monitoring the unrest in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, as “our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”

Late Sunday, a group of about 100 to 200 protesters gathered around the Brooklyn Center police headquarters and threw projectiles, including rocks, at the police department, Commissioner John Harrington of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said in a live-streamed news briefing. The group was later dispersed.

Another pocket of protesters broke into about twenty businesses at a regional shopping center, with some businesses looted, according to the police and local media reports.

Anti-police protesters have already spent recent days rallying in Minneapolis as the trial of Derek Chauvin, a white former city policeman, enters the third week in a courthouse ringed with barriers and soldiers from the National Guard.

Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter for kneeling on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, who was handcuffed during the deadly arrest last May, video of which sparked global protests against police brutality.

A curfew was imposed in Brooklyn Center until 6 a.m. Monday (11 GMT), Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott said. “We want to make sure everyone is safe. Please be safe and please go home,” he said in a tweet addressed to protestors.

Wright’s mother, Katie Wright, told reporters at the scene that she had received a call from her son on Sunday afternoon telling her that police had pulled him over for having air fresheners dangling from his rear-view mirror, illegal in Minnesota. She could hear police tell her son to get out of the vehicle, she said.

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