Protesting French medics teargassed

FRENCH police fired tear gas after protestors pelted them with objects during a Paris demonstration on Tuesday led by thousands of health-care workers demanding more investment in the health system.

Doctors, nurses and administrative staff marched without incident in the capital and other cities to demand the government keep its promise to overhaul France’s hospital system in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

But when demonstrators arrived in front of the Les Invalides complex in central Paris, protesters clad in black set fire to a vehicle and pelted the police with projectiles, chanting “everybody hates the police.”

They also overturned several vehicles. Police then fired tear gas and charged in chaotic scenes.

Police estimated the Les Invalides crowd to be 18,000. A police source said radical anti-government protesters had merged into the crowd and estimated their number at between 250 and 300. “Violent groups are trying to escalate tensions at the peaceful demonstration held by healthcare workers,” police headquarters in Paris tweeted. Thirty-two people were arrested, according to police.

“They have hijacked this protest by force,” Patrick Pelloux, the head of the Association of Emergency Doctors in France told BFM television, adding he was “disgusted.”

There were also clashes between police and demonstrators in the northern city of Lille, in Nantes and Toulouse in southern France.

(AFP)