Thousands of people take to the streets of Paris against the cost of living and climate inaction

MADRID, 16 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Some 140,000 people, according to the organizers; 30,000, according to the Police, have taken to the streets of Paris this Sunday afternoon to support the call "Against the cost of living and climate inaction."

The independent company Occurrence has accounted for 29,500 people in the protest, according to French television BFMTV, at the demonstration, called by the New Popular Ecologist and Social Union (NUPES) coalition, which brings together the French political left.

"We have already been successful in our commitment. This is only the beginning," said the deputy of La Francia Insumisa Aurélie Trouvou, who is leading the march. The leader of NUPES, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has also highlighted that the demonstration is "a great success".

"Popular unity is the solution to the open crisis", Mélenchon stressed from the podium. "You are going to live a week like we don't see it so often," he stressed, while he has called for participation in the general strike next Tuesday. "Don't miss it. Don't leave your place in the fight to others," he pointed out.

"We are in the process of drawing the construction of a new popular front that will come to power in our country when the time comes," he stressed, while appealing to the current president, Emmanuel Macron, "Pensions are not touched! ".

Regarding the strike at the five Total refineries that has caused shortages and long queues at gas stations, Mélenchon has assured that "it is the bosses, the refineries who are blocking the country."

"The workers are making use of their constitutional right, which is to strike," he argued. Furthermore, "those who let the situation come to this knew that if there was a strike, there would be no gasoline." Mélenchon has marched accompanied by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Annie Ernaux.

Some 2,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilized this Sunday as part of the security deployment during the demonstration. There has been some material damage to shop windows and facades of some shops and banks such as Société Générale. Some individuals managed to access the bank branch and took out several computers that they left on the sidewalk.

There have also been attempts to damage commercial signs or banking establishments that were "prevented" by the Police, according to a police source quoted by BFMTV.