Paris police use tear gas, water cannon on 'yellow vest' protests anniversary

[rooster59]

Paris police use tear gas, water cannon on 'yellow vest' protests anniversary

By Dominique Vidalon

 

Protesters attend a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the "yellow vests" movement in Paris, France, November 16, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

 

PARIS (Reuters) - Demonstrators torched cars and pelted police with stones and bottles and police fired tear gas and water cannon in Paris on Saturday as rallies to mark the first anniversary of the anti-government "yellow vest" demonstrations erupted into violence.

 

A total of 28,000 people demonstrated across France on Saturday including 4,700 in Paris, the interior ministry said.

 

This was more than in recent weeks but 10 times less the record 282,000 estimated for the whole country on Nov. 17, 2018, the first day of the protests.

 

In Paris, police took 124 people in for questioning and 78 people were in custody , the authorities said.

 

Demonstrators, many clad in black and hiding their faces, vandalised an HSBC bank branch at the Place d'Italie. They set trash bins on fire, hurled cobblestones and bottles at riot police, and erected barricades.

 

Several cars were set ablaze. Police responded with tear gas and blasts from water cannon.

 

Clashes also broke out between demonstrators and police near the Porte de Champerret, close to the Arc de Triomphe, as protesters prepared to march across town towards Gare d'Austerlitz.

 

Police also intervened to prevent a few hundred demonstrators from occupying the Paris ring road.

 

Paris police prefect Didier Lallement cancelled permission for a scheduled demonstration in view of the violence.

 

There were still a few scattered clashes in Les Halles area in central Paris by early evening.

 

In other cities, yellow vest demonstrations were largely peaceful, with 1,000 people marching in Marseille in southern France.

 

The yellow vest protests, named for the high-visibility jackets worn by demonstrators, erupted in November 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living. The demonstrations spiralled into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron and his economic reforms.

 

The protests have lost strength in recent months but leaders called for people to turn out on Saturday to mark the anniversary.

 

Protests have been banned near tourists spots such as the Eiffel Tower and 20 subway stations were closed on Saturday.

 

MACRON HEADACHE

 

The yellow vest movement was one of the toughest challenges to Macron's presidency before it dwindled in the early summer.

 

It evolved from nationwide road blockades into a series of often-violent demonstrations that pitted rowdy protesters with police and ravaged Paris and other cities.

 

The crisis forced Macron to make policy concessions and delay the next wave of reforms, including overhauling the pension and unemployment systems.

 

Macron's plans to simplify the unwieldy and expensive pension system, which he says will make it fairer, is particularly unpopular.

 

Trade unions have called on railway workers, Paris public transport staff, truck drivers and civil servants to strike against the pensions overhaul on Dec. 5 and in some cases beyond. Students and yellow vest protesters have called for people to join forces with the unions.

 

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, additional reporting Richard Lough, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-11-17

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[blazes]

You've got to give it to the French: they sure know how to demonstrate.

 

The English are so polite and pacific when you think what they have put up with during the moronic Extinction Rebellion $hite.  The French, rational as ever, don't bother protesting about something far in the future which cannot be verified by scientific means.  On the contrary, they protest about issues that affect their lives NOW!!!

 

Hopefully the British police will soon have the powers to use water cannon against those "peaceful" protestors.  

[Andrew65]

9 hours ago, blazes said:

You've got to give it to the French: they sure know how to demonstrate.

 

The English are so polite and pacific when you think what they have put up with during the moronic Extinction Rebellion $hite.  The French, rational as ever, don't bother protesting about something far in the future which cannot be verified by scientific means.  On the contrary, they protest about issues that affect their lives NOW!!!

 

Hopefully the British police will soon have the powers to use water cannon against those "peaceful" protestors.  

During the last big riots in London, which didn't really have a "cause", one commentator pointed out that the only time that something really changed in the UK was when a protest turned seriously violent, the Poll Tax riots.

I believe some of these Extinction Rebellion people are actually mentally ill, from observing their behaviour on TV. Probably been frazzling their brains with drugs since they were at school & uni.

[tgw]

nope, water cannons and tear gas were mostly used on hobby rioters, not much on yellow vest protesters.

 

I hope they arrested all violent protesters at Place d'Italie and will put them in jail for some months.

 

BTW, I fully support the yellow vest's central message - it's enough with taxes already! stop the high taxes for low and middle classes in France!

[Andrew65]

27 minutes ago, tgw said:

nope, water cannons and tear gas were mostly used on hobby rioters, not much on yellow vest protesters.

 

I hope they arrested all violent protesters at Place d'Italie and will put them in jail for some months.

 

BTW, I fully support the yellow vest's central message - it's enough with taxes already! stop the high taxes for low and middle classes in France!

In their last Presidential election, 36% of voters voted for a party that would take France out of the EU, an organisation that exists mainly to benefit elites.

[tgw]

4 minutes ago, Andrew65 said:

In their last Presidential election, 36% of voters voted for a party that would take France out of the EU, an organisation that exists mainly to benefit elites.

that party rakes in votes because many different people identify with many different claims they make.

these 36% are another clear sign that French people have had enough of what the center-left does. Same as in Germany. In both countries, the former political right is now center, even part left, while the left suffers from its own incapability of acting. Both lose voters because they can't induce change.

[sunnyboy2018]

10 hours ago, blazes said:

You've got to give it to the French: they sure know how to demonstrate.

 

The English are so polite and pacific when you think what they have put up with during the moronic Extinction Rebellion $hite.  The French, rational as ever, don't bother protesting about something far in the future which cannot be verified by scientific means.  On the contrary, they protest about issues that affect their lives NOW!!!

 

Hopefully the British police will soon have the powers to use water cannon against those "peaceful" protestors.  

And cattle prods. Even better spray the eco extremists with a solution of human excrement and acid - a technique used by Latin American riot police.

[sunnyboy2018]

1 hour ago, Andrew65 said:

During the last big riots in London, which didn't really have a "cause", one commentator pointed out that the only time that something really changed in the UK was when a protest turned seriously violent, the Poll Tax riots.

I believe some of these Extinction Rebellion people are actually mentally ill, from observing their behaviour on TV. Probably been frazzling their brains with drugs since they were at school & uni.

Yep. Brain dead from smoking GM Skunk! But the riots of 2013 were caused by police shooting an armed gangster. Some 'communities' venerate armed thugs over law.

[Andrew65]

15 hours ago, tgw said:

that party rakes in votes because many different people identify with many different claims they make.

these 36% are another clear sign that French people have had enough of what the center-left does. Same as in Germany. In both countries, the former political right is now center, even part left, while the left suffers from its own incapability of acting. Both lose voters because they can't induce change.

Similar thing happened in the UK/Scotland, in the Blair years the Labour Party had become centrist, not the leftist party it was.

 

The Scottish National Party made massive gains, basically many Scots didn't want a party who had a man as leader who was known by some as "Tory Tony", a "Red-Tory". Labour had been a Labour stronghold for a long time.

[Andrew65]

15 hours ago, sunnyboy2018 said:

Yep. Brain dead from smoking GM Skunk! But the riots of 2013 were caused by police shooting an armed gangster. Some 'communities' venerate armed thugs over law.

Of course, but what I mean is they didn't have a long running cause like the Poll Tax.

An example of what you mention in London were obviously the Krays in London, and the Mafia in other places.