French politician's office is vandalised over pension dispute

In an apparent attempt to pressure his right-wing party into voting to defeat President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, protesters destroyed the Republican Party leader's office in Nice.

As a paving stone was hurled at his business in the French Riviera city overnight into Sunday, Eric Ciotti posted a picture of the damaged windows of the building.

In allusion to the resolutions of censure against the pension reform that will be voted on Monday in the National Assembly in Paris, the vandals also wrote the phrases "the motion or the stone" on the wall.

Macron this week gave the prime minister Elisabeth Borne the go-ahead to use an unique constitutional prerogative to avoid a vote in the lower house of parliament in the midst of weeks of widespread demonstrations over his proposal to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.

On Friday, MPs from opposing political parties submitted no-confidence resolutions against her Cabinet in retaliation.

There would not have been enough votes to overturn the statute, since Ciotti had said his party would not support any of the two resolutions of censure.

Ciotti tweeted in response to the vandalism, saying, "I will never yield to the new followers of terror." It will be difficult to pass a no-confidence resolution given that none have been successful since 1962 and Macron's centrist coalition still has the majority of members in the National Assembly.

It's possible that some conservatives would deviate from the Republican party line, but it's unclear if they'll be prepared to overthrow Macron's administration. AP