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Gilets jaunes protesters turn out in Paris for fifth weekend Gilets jaunes protesters turn out in Paris for fifth weekend
(about 2 hours later)
Paris police have been deployed in large numbers for the fifth consecutive weekend of demonstrations by gilets jaunes protesters, with authorities repeating calls for calm after previous rallies turned violent. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of French cities in the fifth weekend of nationwide demonstrations against Emmanuel Macron’s government, despite calls to hold off after a gun attack in Strasbourg earlier this week.
At least 21 people were detained on Saturday morning as security forces in riot gear were positioned along the Champs-Élysées, where shops were closed and their windows boarded up. They were also deployed around central train stations, including Saint Lazare where they checked bags in the shadow of a water cannon truck. In Paris, police were out in force to contain possible outbursts of violence. But several major stores, such as the Galeries Lafayette, were open to Christmas shoppers.
Authorities said about 8,000 police and 14 armoured vehicles would be deployed in the French capital. Groups of demonstrators smashed and looted stores, clashed with police and set up burning barricades in the streets. Numbers of protesters were down compared to Saturday last week, a police source said.
The gilets jaunes movement, which takes its name from the fluorescent safety vests French motorists must all carry in their vehicles, emerged in mid-November as a protest against fuel tax increases. It has since morphed into an expression of anger about the high cost of living and a sense that Emanuel Macron’s government is detached from the everyday struggles of workers. If you want to understand the gilets jaunes, get out of Paris | Nora Bensaâdoune
“Respect my existence or expect my resistance,” read a banner held aloft by one of the thousands of protesters who began converging on the Champs-Élysées on Saturday morning. Teargas was fired at small groups of protesters in brief clashes with riot police near the Champs-Élysées.
“We’re here to represent all our friends and members of our family who can’t come to protest, or because they’re scared,” said Pierre Lamy, a 27-year-old industrial worker wearing a yellow vest with a French flag draped over his shoulders. Close by, a handful of topless activists from the feminist protest group Femen faced security forces a few meters away from the Élysée Palace, the president’s residence.
The gilet jaunes (yellow vests) movement started in mid-November with protests at junctions and roundabouts against fuel tax increases, but quickly became a wider mobilisation against Macron’s economic policies.
Successive weekends of protests in Paris have led to vandalism and violent clashes with security forces.
The gilets jaunes have cowed Macron. But for them, that’s just the start | John LichfieldThe gilets jaunes have cowed Macron. But for them, that’s just the start | John Lichfield
He said the protests had long stopped being about the fuel tax and had turned into a movement for economic justice. “Everything’s coming up now. We’re being bled dry.” Loic Bollay, 44, marching on the Champs-Élysées in a yellow vest, said the protests were more subdued than in previous weeks but the movement would go on until the demonstrators’ grievances were addressed.
The French president called on Friday for calm during the demonstrations, and the government urged protesters to remain peaceful. “Since the Strasbourg attack, it is calmer, but I think next Saturday and the following Saturdays ... it will come back.”
“Protesting is a right. So let’s know how to exercise it,” the government tweeted from its official account, with a 34-second video which begins with images of historic French protests and recent footage of gilets jaunes protesters rallying peacefully before turning to violence. The interior minister said around 69,000 police were active on Saturday with a reinforced presence in the cities of Toulouse, Bordeaux and Saint-Étienne.
“Protesting is not smashing. Protesting is not smashing our heritage. Protesting is not smashing our businesses ... Protesting is not smashing our republic,” the video says. A police source told Reuters 16,000 protesters had been counted in France, excluding Paris, by 11am GMT, compared to 22,000 at the same time on 8 December.
Macron acknowledged in a speech earlier this week that he was partially responsible for the anger. He has announced measures that aim to improve workers’ spending power, but has so far refused to reinstate a wealth tax that was lifted in an attempt to spur investment in France. In Paris, where groups of hundreds of protesters marched in splintered groups in several neighbourhoods, 85 had been arrested by around midday, according to a Paris police official.
“I don’t think our democracy can accept to function with a dialogue that is carried out only with the occupation of the public domain, only by elements of violence,” Macron said on Friday. On Friday, President Macron called for a return to calm in France after nearly a month of protests by the so-called “yellow vest” movement against his government’s policies. The demonstrations have hit growth and caused widespread disruption.
In Paris on Saturday, some protesters said the president still did not understand them. “France needs calm, order and a return to normal,” Macron said, after a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels.
“I think that Macron isn’t in touch with what the yellow vests want. I think the yellow vests need to continue speaking out” said Julie Verrier, a protester from Picardie, Normandy, who had been protesting there for the past three weeks and had travelled to Paris for Saturday’s demonstration. In a televised address to the nation on Monday, Macron announced wage rises for the poorest workers and tax cuts for pensioners in further concessions meant to end the movement but many said they would maintain pressure.
“The problem is that in the countryside local city halls are closed so we can’t go there to express and write our complaints and our wishes,” she said. “So coming here is the only way we have to say that French people need to be heard.” The government, as well as several unions and opposition politicians, called on protesters to stay off the streets on Saturday, after four people were killed in a gun attack at a Christmas market in the historic city of Strasbourg.
Paris police have been deployed in large numbers for the fifth consecutive weekend of demonstrations by gilets jaunes protesters, with authorities repeating calls for calm after previous rallies turned violent.
ParisParis
ProtestProtest
FranceFrance
EuropeEurope
Emmanuel Macron
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