live from london. this is bbc news. more protests in france — over the change to the pension age. this is the scene live in paris — and there have been big protests in other cities, including marseille and nantes. elsewhere, the french president urges his chinese counterpart to help stop the war in ukraine and �*bring russia to its senses�*. and dozens of officers at the uk's biggest police force are diverted from tackling terrorism and serious crimes to investigate wrongdoing within the metrpolitan police.

we start in france. large numbers have taken to the streets again, the 11th day of mass protests against the change in pension age in france. a meeting between the prime minister and labour unions failed to break the deadlock yesterday. on the streets there in france we have more large protests, notjust paris but many of the big cities. notjust paris but many of the big cities. france's constitutional council will decide next week on the validity of the government's move after the change was rammed through parliament with no vote. let's speak to our correspondent hugh schofield who is on the streets near the protests in paris.

there is no prospect of the government giving way on the key part of the law which is raising the age from 62 to 64 for state pension, and there is no sign as we see here of the protesters giving up. it may be that beneath the scenes there are things happening as the law approaches this publication in becoming actually law, people will start giving up, because they will say what's the point of these weekly demonstrations. but there is no sign of that yet. indeed i havejust heard that the unions have announced another day of protests a week from today, so next thursday there will be another big protest movement. that's interesting because it is on the eve, of course, of this decision, of this deliberation of this ruling by the constitutional council which is the body which will decide whether or not the pension law is in conformity with the constitution. so the protesters are certainly not giving up but this has been another big demonstration. we are at the end of it now. you can

see that's actually the last parting is now. but we've been here for three hours. it's been going on constantly all afternoon. it’s three hours. it's been going on constantly all afternoon. it's been laruel constantly all afternoon. it's been largely peaceful — constantly all afternoon. it's been largely peaceful though, - constantly all afternoon. it's been largely peacefulthough, hugh, i constantly all afternoon. it's been i largely peacefulthough, hugh, and largely peaceful though, hugh, and on other vacations over the last two and a half months that's not been the case. we are going to hear in a moment two from a train driver, a union member explaining why he is joining this protest, butjust take our viewers through what the government is saying because president macron is absolutely insistent that france has to do this. it cannot afford not to do this. it cannot afford not to do this. it cannot afford not to do this. , m. ., this. it cannot afford not to do this. , ., .,, this. indeed. president macron has said over and _ this. indeed. president macron has said over and again _ this. indeed. president macron has said over and again that _ this. indeed. president macron has said over and again that he - this. indeed. president macron has said over and again that he is - this. indeed. president macron has said over and again that he is not l said over and again that he is not up said over and again that he is not up for reelection. he can't run again in four up for reelection. he can't run again infouryears�* up for reelection. he can't run again in four years' time. so he is not after the personality of all this, in fact he's willing to take on his own shoulders the unpopularity that goes with this measure. his view is that this is necessary for france because it needs to bring itself, as other countries have done across europe,

into line with demography and the fact that there are many more people living on a state pension now than there are working. and the french system functions because it is a single pot of money into which people who are in work pay, and out of which people who are retired take out their pension. in the end balance between the people of the number of people working and retiring is getting to sort of extended, and so distorted, that those deficit what he says is he's doing this for the greater good of the country doing this for the greater good of the count j ., , doing this for the greater good of the country— the country what is all of this doinu to the country what is all of this doing to his _ the country what is all of this doing to his poll— the country what is all of this doing to his poll ratings, - the country what is all of this i doing to his poll ratings, hugh? the country what is all of this - doing to his poll ratings, hugh? not much. doing to his poll ratings, hugh? iirrt much. there's not much that's good. he's down to 25%. it's worth always

keeping in something in mind though, his pre—discuss before that went down much, much lower. and i think this is because there is in france a kind of corps of voters for macron who approve of what he is doing. the trouble is, they are may be a third at most of the vote and the rest is divided and the far left who are out today on the far right who are not out today, but who don't like this either. so he is in that sense very much and i minority. his word is out the operatives this is from the two extremes. he is the centigram and what he is doing is for the benefit of the country as a whole.- what he is doing is for the benefit of the country as a whole. thank you once again- — axel persson, a train driver and a member of one of the biggest labour unions in france, the cgt, explains the reasons for his support for the protests. well, the issue at stake is whether working people will accept working an additional two years, even despite the fact that the majority of

the shareholders and big corporations, the insurances, you name it, have fostered and have garnered records of profits throughout these last years. so, what this is really about whether we will accept being attacked by what we perceive as a greedy attack on our pensions, because there is no economic justification given the huge amount of wealth being produced in this country, that we should be working an additional two years just to satisfy the narrow needs of the few for a select minority to garner even more profits than they are already doing. so that is what we are not accepting. the government say the polar opposite, they say that france cannot continue to have a pension age of 62, that it simply cannot afford it. and there will be many, many people looking at these pictures watching the dispute around the world that look at your pension age of 62 and think that is way out of whack with what goes

on in their country. well, there are some countries that retire later and some that actually retire earlier than in france. but the issue at hand, should we really have workers here asking the question in these terms? because , we are currently retiring at 62 for some, and workers like myself can actually retire at 52 currently, but we are saying, "in what type of society do we want to live in — in one where we use the collective wealth we are creating to finance for example, better public services, better wages and better pensions? or should we be continuing to accompany this general degradation and attacks on all of the terms and conditions? it is really weird to see that in france nowadays we produce approximately 10, sometimes 15 times more wealth than 70 years ago when the current pension systems were created, and now, despite the fact wealth is overflowing in society today, they are saying we don't have enough

money to finance it. in a sense what you are articulating, though, is a wider dispute about the sort of economic backdrop you want france to actually be governed under. that is something that is determined by elections, not this sort of thing, surely? well, you could have a long discussion about this, but this is true in most modern so—called democracies across the world. winning an election and winning the control of parliament is very different from representing the interests of the majority. you can look at any parliament — it is the same pretty much in the uk as in france. parliament does not reflect, for example what society looks like. workers, for example, represent more than 60% of the population in france. sure, but these are not all workers. you can't look at pictures like this and simply say, "all workers are against it."

that, too, would be to misinterpret what going is on. well, these are the workers. it is a pensions issue. of course those who are not workers may have an opinion on it, but we don't really care about that because it is not their problem — this is a problem of workers. no, what i am saying to you is that not all workers are joining these protests. well, it depends. according to the opinion polls, more than 90%... even those supported by the government, i might add, they say more than 90% of workers support the strikes. of course. some take part in some demonstrations, not others. these strikes have been fluctuating since january but the vast and overwhelming majority of the workers, either from the public or private sectors, support the strike and are against this government on this specific issue. and it is very easy to understand, because why would we allow ourselves to be robbed of two years of life as pensioners? there is nojustification for that. no workers, regardless of who they voted, would accept that.

you will find many people in the demonstrations actually who voted for macron at the last election to demonstrate in today and are on strike today because most of them, they voted not for macron's programme had more to prevent the far right from gaining power... finally, a quick question. you said you don't think the ballot box is where this dispute gets solved. in terms of what we have heard from the government, absolutely no sign of any sorts of concessions. if there is not a change of mind, what happens in france over the coming weeks? no one can know for sure, but we know that we as workers, as organised labour, we will suggest for all workers to continue the fight until our demands are met, regardless of what the constitutional court or the government decides. we know that in the end what will happen if we win the struggle is not really in parliment where it will happen, but what will happen if we manage to win this struggle is if we managed to inflict enough

economic and social damage on our adversaries in order to force the employers who are making the true decisions on these matters to call the government and tell them to back down. this is what has already happened. the last time macron tried to attack our pension system was in 2019, 2020, we went on strike for 56 days and the government adopted the pension reform in the assembly then made a political decision to never implement it because after the strike covid happened, they organise lockdowns, then he made a political decision to not resume the fate that had been suspended because of covid. so we know it is not in the institutions we we will get our demands met, so we have no illusions on the institutions, the constitutional court of the parliament. we rely on our own industrial and collective strengths. as we returned to the live police we were listening to a another volley

of tear gas and small fires. we have seen those sort of things through the last few hours. no real flare—up of violence. we have seen over the last two and a half months at different stages real violence they are in paris, but these sorts of scenes and skirmishes with the police pushing back the protesters, going on for hours in different parts of the capital. as we have been saying, another protest to an other french cities. so that is the latest detail from paris. we turn to bejing, where president macron has told xi jinping that he's counting on the chinese leader, to reason with russia and help bring an end to the war in ukraine. president xi focussed his attention on economic issues, saying china's development will not be stopped by decoupling and breaking chains. more on that in a moment, but the french leader made his comments at the start of today's meeting, when he also asked china's leader to press russia to comply with international rules protecting against the use of nuclear weapons.

translation: the russian aggression in ukraine has ended _ decades of peace in europe. i know i can count on you to bring russia to its senses and everyone to the negotiating table. but we need to find a lasting peace. that is to say, a peace that respects internationally recognised borders and avoids any form of escalation. the president of the european commission is also in bejing with emmanuel macron in what's being framed as good cop/bad cop. ursula von der leyen taking a tough stance. we also count on china not to provide any military equipment directly or indirectly to russia, because we all know arming the aggressor would be against international law and it would significantly harm our relationship. moritz korner is a german member of the european parliament and part

of the parliament's delegation for relations with china. of course, there was hope from this visit by president macron and president von der leyen to convince beijing to really play a more constructive role in bringing russia to end this brutal war. but unfortunately, i think this whole did not really come through. today we see that the press conference, she was not really open to that. and even looked a little bit annoyed that macron was talking so long. so i think we will not see a big change in the policy of china towards russia and the war in ukraine. i mentioned president xi concentrating his thoughts on economic issues, warning against the west weaponizing and politicising economic issues. now emmanuel macron is taking a large delegation

of business leaders. ursula von der leyen is talking about de—risking with china. can you keep developing trade and de—risk at the same time? yeah, i think that's a little bit difficult here. and i see that of course people are talking about the good cop, bad cop. so macrom going with the economic delegation and the non—aligned giving the strong speech on on china. so i think we have to rethink in the european union about our china policy. i think we have to de—risk. we have to make sure that we are not dependent on china in special fields. but of course, we cannot completely stop investing and trading with china. so what we have to do is to rebalance our relationship

to have more trade agreements, also with other parts of the world, of course, with liberal democracies, we should strengthen our relationship there, but also trade more with other partners to make sure we are not so dependent on china any more. a final thought, because i'm going to put onto the screen a picture of those meetings between saudi arabian officials and iranian officials, that meeting brokered by china. that is a significant development as china tries to increase their global geopolitical footprint. i mean, some observers have been warning about concerns that beijing is trying to woo parts of europe away from the us orbit. do you share that concern? there is this concern. i don't really see it happening because i think the war in ukraine even brought the european union closer together and closer to the us. but you mentioned the meeting between iran and saudi arabia today.

so we have to see that china is everywhere in the world and is trying to find new alliances around the west. so we also in the west, the european union, uk and also the us, we have to be more ambitious to create more alliances, and i think we will see an even stronger geopolitical century now and we will we have to be able to to act in this new century. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news. he may be 100, butjohn bell's memory is as bright as his medals.

obviously, getting to 100 is pretty good for in my line of business. people don't last that long. john was responsible for targeting a bomb on a bunker in calais, which housed rockets and super guns, which hitler planned to use for a huge attack on london. it was just john's skill as a bomb aimer that his £22,000 bomb landed pretty much about five metres from the edge of the bunker. william and john both live at the royal air force's association retirement complex at stonnington, where william organised a birthday fly—past, a symbolic tribute to the man believed to be the last surviving wartime air crew member of the dambusters squadron. you're live here with bbc news. london's metropolitan police says it

has moved officers from tackling serious crime and terrorism to boost their efforts to clean up its own workforce. last month, a major review branded the force institutionally sexist, racist and homophobic. speaking on a bbc radio call—in show earlier today, the head of the met was asked whether he'd dismiss all officers found guilty of wrongdoing. to answer the question in shorthand. yes, of course i want to sack them. actually, in a lot of cases, well, in all cases, i don't have the final say on who's in the metropolitan police. i know that sounds mad. i'm the commissioner. you're holding me to account with this question because you want me to run a good police service. yet there are independent legal tribunals who can decide that we have to keep somebody, even though we want to sack them. and that's one of the powers i've asked to be changed for the home secretary. and she's doing a review which will publish at the end of this month that i think

if you expect me to sort out the cultural issues in the mayor and get rid of the people, then give me the powers to do it. can you imagine if you were sitting here with the chief executive of a big organisation saying, well, they weren't allowed to sack certain people, somebody else had to decide for them. it seems to me it seems to be nonsensical. i have to be completely transparent about the decisions we make. these hearings are public, but the fact we don't have the final say is the problem. we have people. so it's not that we haven't made bad decisions ourselves from time to time. we definitely have done so. i'm not trying to off—load the responsibility, but we have people who we've sacked, and the independent tribunals have reinstated them, even though they've got serious criminal convictions. now i'm speaking live to dr koshka duff, an assistant professor at the university of nottingham. backed in 2013 she was strip—searched by two female officers in london after offering a legal advice card to a black teenager who had been stopped and searched. doctor, thank you so much forjoining us on the programme. just a our viewers a little more of the detail about what happened to you, because you settled that case in the end and there was an apology, wasn't there?—

wasn't there? thank you much for havin: wasn't there? thank you much for having me — wasn't there? thank you much for having me on _ wasn't there? thank you much for having me on the _ wasn't there? thank you much for having me on the show. _ wasn't there? thank you much for having me on the show. i - wasn't there? thank you much for having me on the show. i was - having me on the show. i was strip—searched. it was actually three offices who did it. back in 2013, after i had been arrested for offering a legal advice card to a 16—year—old who is being stopped and starts. and that was involved being pinned to the floor of her cell and having my hands cuffed, my legs tied together, and my close cut off with scissors. it took me eight years to receive a kind of partial apology from the match. they apologised for some of the language they used after cctv, which they had the whole time, finally emerged showing the officer who ordered my strip—searched saying, treat her like a terrorist. in numerous sexualised comments

about my body, and marking my body hair, so they never apologised for the strip—searched itself and no officer hasn't yet been disciplined. they apologised as i see here for the sexist, derogatory, language used, exactly as you are telling us which of course echoes what we had and that casey report only a few weeks ago. now we heard the met commissioner they are, saying he thought it was crazy that he didn't have the power to get rid of rogue officers. i am assuming that you would support any push to change the law to give him that power to actually get rid of some of these officers, more generally.- actually get rid of some of these officers, more generally. yes, so i think that officers, more generally. yes, so i thinkthat the — officers, more generally. yes, so i think that the idea _ officers, more generally. yes, so i think that the idea that _ officers, more generally. yes, so i think that the idea that the - think that the idea that the problems of policing can be dealt with by more police investigation themselves, and kind of rebranding and shuffling around, and by sacking

individual bad apples, i am concerned —— is part of this cycle of outrage superficial reform? so it is really a kind of deflection of public scrutiny from the institutional racism misogyny, homophobia, that damning report after damning report identifies. so once again, be on the business of saying oh, this is about bad individuals sneaking through. we need to prevent them. isn’t individuals sneaking through. we need to prevent them.— individuals sneaking through. we need to prevent them. isn't it wider than that because _ need to prevent them. isn't it wider than that because mike _ need to prevent them. isn't it wider than that because mike i _ need to prevent them. isn't it wider than that because mike i know - than that because mike i know there is not whole issue about using that term that debaters have been raging ever since those interviews, but in terms of you described this as superficial, it is not, because he was talking this morning about the numbers of cases being re—investigated, 196 urgent reviews, nearly 700 reassessments, that is quite sizeable, isn't it? just looking again at cases and thinking did we get this right, and if we didn't, let's correct it?-

didn't, let's correct it? yes, i cuess didn't, let's correct it? yes, i guess the — didn't, let's correct it? yes, i guess the question _ didn't, let's correct it? yes, i guess the question is - didn't, let's correct it? yes, i guess the question is who . didn't, let's correct it? yes, i guess the question is who is| didn't, let's correct it? yes, i- guess the question is who is looking as those cases? and from what perspective? so my experience with the police complaint system is that there is an awful lot of looking like you are doing something, meanwhile the complaint gets kind of disappeared into a bureaucratic abyss. it's really stop against any member of the public who does want to raise a complaint. so it's all very well to say, well, if the police decide that what these officers have done is a problem, then they will, they should be sacked. welfare enough, but the problem is that the officers in my case were not acting out of the norm for the way that police officers behave. they were backed up every second of the way. by their fellow officers. in the problem is, this isn't about individual police officers, bad attitudes, or even their identities. it was women, as you said, who did this to me. it was

black police officers involved in this racist stop and search operation. the problem is that we need to be taking away the powers, like that power to strip—searched people for drugs, which is implicated in 90% of all of the stop and search in different parts, searches, because we see time and time again the police are moving these two abuse and oppress the most vulnerable. i’ge these two abuse and oppress the most vulnerable. �* ., , ., ., vulnerable. i've only got time for one sentence, _ vulnerable. i've only got time for one sentence, if— vulnerable. i've only got time for one sentence, if you _ vulnerable. i've only got time for one sentence, if you could - vulnerable. i've only got time for one sentence, if you could limit. one sentence, if you could limit yourself in terms of everything you have heard in terms of what it being suggested, ten public confidence be restored? i suggested, ten public confidence be restored? ., �* ~' suggested, ten public confidence be restored? ~ , , . restored? i don't think the public confidence _ restored? i don't think the public confidence should _ restored? i don't think the public confidence should be _ restored? i don't think the public confidence should be restored i confidence should be restored through this kind of face—saving operation. i think we need to be decriminalising drugs, disentangling mental health care from the criminal system. mental health care from the criminal s stem. , ., mental health care from the criminal s stem, , ., . mental health care from the criminal s stem. , ., . mental health care from the criminal

s stem. , .,. mental health care from the criminal s stem. , , system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to — system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to come _ system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to come to _ system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to come to the _ system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to come to the close - system. sorry to cut you off, but we are about to come to the close of. are about to come to the close of this particular addition. thank you for talking to us here on bbc news, and back with more of the days headlines. we'll keep an eye on what's going on in paris here in just a moment. hello there. we saw the sunshine developing more widely today. and as the showers fade away and skies clear and winds drop, the easter weekend could start cold with a widespread slight frost. the cloud that brought the earlier

rain followed by the showers are moving away out into the north sea. and following on from that, we've got pressure rising, this ridge of high pressure tending to build in and that will kill off any remaining showers there may hang around for a while across some eastern parts of england and eastern scotland. but even here, we'll see skies clearing later and the winds will be falling light. so temperatures will drop sharply. these are the numbers in towns and cities. so in rural areas, knock off a couple of degrees and we could be as low as minus two or minus three in northern ireland, wales and western scotland. good friday starts cold but sunny and the winds will be light as well. so it will feel pleasant in the sunshine as temperatures rise. so the cloud will build up a little and spread out a bit, especially across eastern parts of england. there's also more cloud coming in from the north sea and it could be thick enough to give it one or two spots of light rain in north east england. otherwise a dry day. and if anything, those temperatures may be a degree or so higher than today. and with the light winds, it'll feel pleasant in the sunshine. there'll be some more sunshine around as we head into the weekend because that high pressure still in charge. eventually these weather fronts will make progress from the atlantic, but not just yet.

again, a lot of dry weather around on saturday. more cloud across some eastern parts of england and scotland. and the cloud will develop a bit more further west as the southerly wind picks up as well. temperatures continuing to rise just a little, 14 degrees in the central belt of scotland and 15 in the south east of england for easter sunday. we may have more sunshine around actually on sunday. and ahead of this rain that comes into northern ireland later in the afternoon, towards the evening, the winds will be stronger, but it's the southerly wind that's giving us more warmth. the warmest day of the next few on easter sunday could make 16 degrees around the murray firth merseyside and 17 to the north of london. but then we see that rain coming in to northern ireland. those weather fronts take that rain eastwards overnight into easter monday. so it's a much wetter day on easter monday. we've got that rain moving away from most areas, but it will be followed by some sunshine, some showers, a blustery wind, perhaps, and temperatures will be a little lower.

live from london. this is bbc news. big protests on the streets again across france over the change to the pension age. this is the scene live in paris and there have been big demonstrations in other cities including marseille and nantes. an inquiry fails to determine whether or not a british mp told a minister that her muslim faith was a factor in her sacking, but finds mark spencer did not break ministerial rules. buckingham palace says it's co—operating with an independent study into the british monarchy�*s links to the slave trade.