In France, fierce struggles and mass mobilizations of the working class and the people are currently taking place against the pension "reform" imposed by President Macron by decree. This "reform" is intended to force the masses in France to work two years longer and to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
In addition to this scenario of struggle, on March 25 there were strong fights in the small town of Sainte-Soline in the west of the French state during protests against an environmentally damaging megaproject. In Saint-Soline, as droughts increase in France with climate change, 16 reservoir-like basins are to be built to tap the region's groundwater in winter so it can be used by large agricultural monopolies in summer. Some 30,000 people protested against the project, denouncing it as a monopolization and privatization of groundwater for the benefit of a few.
Proletarian revolutionaries also participated in the demonstration in various forms. Thus, a banner was held up with the slogan "From France to Mexico, proletarians and peasants unite against imperialist megaprojects!"
During the fighting between protesters and police, protesters fired Molotov cocktails, rocks, firecrackers and other projectiles at police and set several police cars on fire. (Video) The gendarmerie and BRAV-M units used water cannons, batons and tear gas grenades in the attacks on protesters. (Video). In total, according to media reports, the police fired 4000 grenades during the fighting.
In addition to tear gas grenades, there was also the use of so-called GM2L and LBD grenades. These grenades serve primarily as stun grenades but can also be filled with tear gas. They contain a certain amount of explosive which is supposed to cause people in the 10-meter range of the explosion radius to fall to the ground stunned. In France, these grenades are categorized as weapons of war. (Video)
In the course of this fighting, 200 demonstrators were injured, Two of them are in a life-threatening comatose state, according to various reports. (Video) The Ligue de la Jeunesse Révolutionnaire states in a statement published on Twitter that its activist "S.", was hit in the head by one of the explosive grenades and is in a coma with life-threatening injuries. Further, the revolutionaries report that the local prefecture blocked the rapid treatment of the injured activist by rescue workers and his transport to a proper medical facility. He is currently in a neurosurgical intensive care unit and is in danger of losing his life.
The second protester who is also in a coma was also hit in the head by a police explosive grenade. After he was injured at 13:30, 3 hours 40 minutes passed until the start of the rescue helicopter at 17:10 , because the police also obstructed medical assistance to the injured. Already a few a days prior during a demonstration for the general strike against the pension "reform", a striking railroad worker was hit by the splinters of such an explosive grenade in the left eye, which led to the blindness in this eye.
Following the struggle in Saint-Soline, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, commented in a press conference on the brutal police action against the demonstrators, in which he denied the use of LBD grenades and weapons of war, despite obvious picture and video evidence. Meanwhile, bourgeois journalists try to justify the brutal violence against activist "S." by, among other things, telling in a scandalous way on TV about his alleged participation in previous revolutionary demonstrations and struggles and portraying him as a "dangerous extremist".
