April 23 — After French President Emmanuel Macron succeeded in pushing a new pension system into law April 15, by avoiding any vote except from the nine former officeholders on the Constitutional Council, he and his cabinet members have been taking short trips throughout France, allegedly to listen

The negative popular reaction to Macron’s “charm offensive” resulted in the administration showing its teeth. During Macron’s visit to Strasbourg, a city east of Paris on the German border, three people were arrested for giving him “the finger.”