A fresh round of demonstrations is taking place across France over government plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, a day before a crucial court ruling on the constitutionality of the divisive law. On Thursday, protesters in Paris forced their way into the headquarters of luxury giant LVMH, on the day shares in the company – which owns brands such as Louis Vuitton and Moët – jumped to a record high. "If Macron wants to find money to finance the pension system, he should come here to find it," Fabien Villedieu, a union leader, told CNN affiliate BFMTV outside the LVMH building. Paris police chief Laurent Nunez warned in advance that protesters might "hit out, often against what they see as capitalist signs," speaking on French radio RMC. Police halted a protest in front of the Constitutional Council, France's equivalent of the US supreme court, which will hand down a long-awaited ruling on the validity of the pension reform law on Friday. CNN teams on the ground witnessed protesters engaging in intense scuffles with police as smoke bombs, projectiles and tear gas were fired, before a group set off red flares outside the court building. Nunez has ordered a ban on protests in the area from Thursday evening until Saturday morning. "Evidently there are always parts that are protected and evidently you can imagine that will be the case with the Constitutional council," Nunez told RMC. Up to 600,000 people are expected to take to the streets across France on Thursday against the pension reforms in the latest protests. Police are bracing themselves for violent attacks that have been a visible, if minor, feature of the protests across France over the past two and a half months. A group known as the "black bloc" is expected to form again, as part of a radical fringe that has been present from the start of the country's social upheaval, Nunez told RMC. France's President Emmanuel Macron argues reforms are essential to rein in public finances, and has been standing firm, this week saying "the country must continue to move forward." Speaking at an incinerator picket line near Paris on Thursday morning, Sophie Binet, the new head of the GGT, one of France's main unions, insisted: "As long as the pension reform is not withdrawn, the mobilization will continue one way or another." Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo voiced her support for the demonstrators before the new round of protests. "On the eve of the decision of the constitutional council, I am once again supporting the mobilisations in Paris and everywhere in France," Hidalgo tweeted. "This reform is unjust and violent. The French have been asking for it to be withdrawn for months, the government has to hear them," she wrote. Friday's ruling will be decisive on whether the protests will continue. The CFDT, France's other main union, has been more amenable to a negotiated settlement. Garbage is meanwhile also set to fill the streets of Paris once more as collectors and incinerator workers are on strike again, according to the CGT union. This will be a rolling strike, the general secretary of the CGT union branch confirmed in a letter to the Paris mayor. The previous near month-long strike, up until the end of March, had seen 10,000 tonnes of rubbish piled up across the capital at its worst. — BBC
