Protesters disrupt Macron speech

WORLD, April 12 (YPA) – Protesters interrupted French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday as he gave a keynote speech about European sovereignty during a state visit to the Netherlands.

Demonstrators shouted “Where is French democracy?” and unfurled banners at the start of the address in The Hague by Macron, who has faced violent protests and strikes at home over pensions reforms.

In The Hague, protesters stood upstairs at the Amare Theatre and chanted “You have millions of protesters on the streets”, other demonstrators targeted the pension and climate change law and one held a banner reading “President of violence and hypocrisy”.

Macron tried to answer as they heckled, and then after security guards had removed them he hit back by saying that people who do “whatever (they) want” against laws they disagree with “put democracy at risk”.

He added that he was “not sure that the tax payer in the Netherlands will accept that we will finance a long social model in France… so I have to do the job back home.”

Earlier Tuesday, Macron and his wife Brigitte were greeted by Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima on their arrival in Amsterdam.

E.M