Macron hits out at French protesters over violence
PARIS: Police firing tear gas and water cannons clashed in Paris with thousands of protesters angry over rising car fuel costs and President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policies, the second weekend of “yellow vest” protests across France.
As night fell, the famed Champs-Elysees avenue, where fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld switched on the red lights of Christmas just a few days ago, was still aglow with fires lit by protesters. President Emmanuel Macron thanked police forces for their “courage and professionalism” in dealing with demonstrators as calm progressively returned to the Champs Elysees. “Shame on those who attacked them ... There is no room for this violence in the Republic,” Macron tweeted.
During the clashes a trailer was set on fire and exploded on the Champs Elysees, France’s most famous tourist mile, and a man who tried to attack fire fighters was overpowered by some of the demonstrators themselves.
On the nearby Avenue de Friedland, police fired special rubber balls to control demonstrators, who carried French flags or slogans, saying “Macron, resignation” and “Macron, thief”. Around 8,000 protesters had converged on the Champs Elysees where police tried to prevent them from reaching the president’s Elysee Palace.
Police detained 130 people in Paris and in protests in other parts of the country. Protesters are opposed to taxes Macron introduced last year on diesel and petrol which are designed to encourage people to switch to cleaner forms of transport. Alongside the tax, the government has offered incentives to buy electric vehicles. For more than a week, protesters clad in the fluorescent yellow jackets that all motorists in France must have in their cars have blocked highways across the country with burning barricades and convoys of trucks.
THOUSANDS PROTEST IN ‘FEMINIST TIDAL WAVE’
Tens of thousands of people rallied across Europe on Saturday against sexist violence, with more than 30,000 turning out in Paris.
Demonstrations across France drew around 50,000 people in all, according to organiser Caroline de Haas, to answer a citizen collective’s call for a “feminist tidal wave” of outrage against gender violence brought into sharp focus by the #MeToo movement.
Elsewhere, a thousand people braved driving rain in Rome while similar protests drew several hundred demonstrators in Geneva and Athens on the eve of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Sunday.
In Spain’s capital Madrid, several hundred people took to the streets to march to loud drumming as some shouted, “We are all here, the murderers are missing.” Authorities put the Paris turnout at 12,000.