The French government said today, Friday, that Britain’s King Charles’ state visit to France will be postponed due to tensions over pension reform. The French and British governments made the decision after a telephone conversation between President Emmanuel Macron and the king, the statement said. .
The announcement came after fears that a protest movement against the pension system in France would affect the visit of Britain’s King Charles III, which unions say will be “at the center of their attention.”
“We continue to mobilize (in protest against the reform) and this visit will be the focus of our attention,” Mathieu Aubry from the General Confederation of Workers and Yvan Faure from the labor union told Sud Ouest.
French Interior Minister Gérard Darmanan said on Friday that 4,000 police and gendarmes would be deployed on the occasion of the visit, which starts on Sunday evening. “We will be ready to receive (the King of Britain) under ideal conditions,” he told CNews.
Charles’s visit will run from Sunday to Wednesday and will be his first state visit since ascending the throne.
On Monday, he was scheduled to give a speech to members of the French Parliament and be a guest at an official dinner at the Palace of Versailles. He also visits Bordeaux in southwestern France.
“It is almost certain that the king will not be able to use the tram” in Bordeaux as he intends, said Pascal Mesghetti, a CFTC trade union delegate to the Bordeaux transport authority.
PCF spokesman Jan Brossa said that Emmanuel Macron “definitely relies more on monarchs than elected representatives of the people who have been denied the right to vote on reforming the pension system” after the government decided to pass the bill without a vote based on the constitutional deadline of 49.3.
