Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of French far-left opposition party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), and leader of the New Ecologic and Social People's Union (NUPES), takes part in a protest against soaring inflation and what they call a lack of government action to fight climate change, in Paris, France October 16, 2022.
REUTERS/Stephane MahePARIS, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Thousands of people took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against soaring prices as weeks of strikes for higher wages at oil refineries spurred demands for a general strike.
The leader of hard-left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), Jean-Luc Melenchon, marched alongside this year's Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Annie Ernaux.
Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said the left-wing coalition was attempting to exploit the current situation, marked by ongoing strikes at French utility EDF's nuclear plants and at French oil refineries.
"Today's march is a march of supporters who want to block the country," he said on French radio station Europe 1.