French Authorities Arrest Dozens of Protesters after Government Survived No-confidence Vote

French authorities arrested dozens across the country as sporadic protests erupted hours after President Emmanuel Macron's government narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence in the National Assembly ( Parliament) on Monday over its deeply unpopular pension reform plans.

The failure of the vote is a source of relief for Macron, as his success would have brought down his government and canceled legislation that would raise the retirement age by two years to 64. However, the state of anger led to protesters taking to the streets in cities across the country, and opposition deputies pledged to impose a reversal of the change in the pension system, while the labor unions prepared for a broad movement on Thursday.

In a number of the most prestigious streets in central Paris, firefighters rushed to put out fires that broke out in piles of rubbish that had accumulated as a result of not being collected for several days due to strikes, while the hit-and-run continued between the protesters and the police for the fifth night in a row.