Britain’s King Charles’ state visit to France is being postponed amid tensions over pension reform, the French president’s office said on Friday.

The French and British governments made the decision following a phone call between President Emmanuel Macron and the monarch, the statement said.

This announcement has been made after the fear that it will be affected A protest movement against the pension system in France During the visit, Britain’s King Charles III said trade unionists would be “at the center of their interest”.

“We continue to mobilize (to protest the reform) and this visit will be our focus,” Mathieu Aubry of the General Confederation of Workers and Yvan Faure of the Labor Union told Sud Ouest.

Charles III

French Interior Minister Gérard Thurmanon said on Friday that 4,000 police and gendarmes will be deployed during the visit, which begins Sunday evening. “We would be ready to receive (Britain’s monarch) in the best possible situation,” he told CNews.

Charles’ visit runs from Sunday to Wednesday and will be his first state visit since ascending to the throne.

He was due to address members of the French parliament on Monday and attend an official dinner at the Palace of Versailles. He also visits Bordeaux in southwest France.

“It is almost certain that the king will not be able to take the tramway,” said Pascal Meschetti, a representative of the CFTC union at Bordeaux’s transport authority.

PCF spokesman John Brossa said the government decided to pass the bill without a referendum because “Emmanuel Macron is certainly leaning more on monarchs than disenfranchised representatives in reforming the pension system.” Constitutional Term 49.3.

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