France braced for big anti-austerity street marches and labor strikes on Thursday, raising the pressure faced by Sébastien Lecornu, the country’s new prime minister, as he tries to pass a debt-reducing budget by the end of the year.
Teachers and railway workers were among the hundreds of thousands expected to take part in demonstrations and work stoppages across France, which in recent weeks has experienced renewed political turmoil and growing concern over its precarious finances.
The authorities have deployed over 80,000 security forces around the country to help contain potential violence and vandalism.
The protests were organized by labor unions angered by the plans of François Bayrou, Mr. Lecornu’s predecessor, to cut and save 44 billion euros (a little over $51 billion) in next year’s state budget. Mr. Bayrou was ousted by lawmakers last week and President Emmanuel Macron replaced him with Mr. Lecornu, a centrist and an ally.
But the anger over Mr. Bayrou’s cost-cutting has persisted. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Lecornu, who had promised a “break” with the past, would scrap his predecessor’s budget plans entirely or use them as a basis for lawmakers to amend.
Labor unions say that anything resembling Mr. Bayrou’s budget — which planned to freeze welfare payments at their current level — would place an unacceptable burden on lower- and middle-class workers while sparing the wealthy.
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