Rioting in France presents a fresh political test for Emmanuel Macron

THE FRENCH president, Emmanuel Macron, is facing one of the toughest challenges yet of his , after rioting across the country continued for a fourth night. Despite deploying tens of thousands of police, the government has struggled to contain the violence. It first broke out after a traffic policeman on June 27th in a rented car who failed to obey orders to stop. Such is the tension that Mr Macron was forced to postpone a planned three-day state visit to Germany due to begin on July 2nd, which would have been the first by a French president for 23 years. That shows the political mire the riots have become for Mr Macron.The minority centrist government that Mr Macron runs is squeezed between a bloc on the far left and another on the nationalist hard right. He had just successfully emerged from a long political battle to enact an , which raises the legal minimum pension age . France had returned to politics as normal. Now, the rioting has handed both opposition factions a chance to undermine his presidency once again.