Vandals attacked the office of a French politician due to a dispute over pensions – KGET 17

PARIS (AP) – Protesters have vandalized the office of the president of the Republican Party in Nice in an apparent threat that his right-wing party will vote to block President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.

Eric Ciotti tweeted a photo of his office in the French Riviera town with broken windows after paving stones were thrown at it overnight on Sunday. Vandals also scrawled the words “proposal or stone” – in reference to motions of no confidence against pension reform to be voted on Monday in the National Assembly in Paris.

Amid weeks of mass protests over Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, Macron last week ordered Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne to invoke a special constitutional power to avoid a vote in the lower house of parliament. In response, MPs from both ends of the political spectrum tabled motions of no confidence in her cabinet on Friday.

Ciotti announced that his party would not vote for either of the two no-confidence motions – meaning there would not be enough votes to stop the law.

Reacting to the vandals, Ciotti tweeted: “I will never yield to the new disciples of terror.”

Passing a no-confidence motion will be challenging – none has passed since 1962, and Macron’s centrist alliance still holds the most seats in the National Assembly. A minority of conservatives may deviate from the Republican party line, but it remains to be seen whether they are ready to topple Macron’s government.