The British newspaper “Mirror” reported that a party in honor of King Charles III was to be moved away from the Palace of Versailles in France due to fears of violence.
According to the information, the riots that broke out in France after President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 without a parliamentary vote made allowing the ceremony to continue next Monday “risky” for the security forces.
The unionists and other demonstrators vowed to block all events that the British monarch would attend, and that their first target was the “Versailles party”.
Sources said that the dinner between Charles III and Macron may not take place in Versailles, as initially planned, that the organizers plan to hold the ceremony elsewhere and that the Elysee Palace in central Paris is a possible alternative.
The party at Versailles was supposed to be the highlight of Charles’s first state visit as king.
A Buckingham Palace source said the situation in France was “monitored” but there were no immediate plans to cancel the trip, which starts on Sunday.
The king and his wife, Camilla, were scheduled to arrive at the palace on Monday evening, accompanied by 200 carefully selected guests hosted by Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron. This will be followed by a concert in the Royal Chapel and then a gala dinner, where food is served with ornate dishes made in the era of Louis XV.
Versailles, to the west of Paris, is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the last King and Queen of France, lived before they were murdered at the height of the 1789 Revolution.
Built by King Louis XIV, the palace still represents the enormous wealth and privilege enjoyed by members of the royal family in France before the revolution.