Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app. Members of the Parisian Observatory of Public Freedoms, who have been monitoring the rallies in the French capital from the ground, painted a bleak picture of unwarranted police charges aimed at “terrorizing” protesters, widespread physical and verbal abuse of demonstrators, and indiscriminate use of weapons such as crowd dispersal grenades and rubber bullets. Yet, with the confidence of many French people in the democratic process shaken by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to force through his embattled pension reform without a vote in Parliament, the strong-arm tactics adopted by the security forces are reinforcing the feeling of an authoritarian slide