1 dead, 227 hurt in French fuel protests
PARIS: One protester was killed and 227 people injured at roadblocks set up around villages, towns and cities across France on Saturday, as citizens angry about rising fuel taxes rose up in a grassroots movement.
Police officers lobbed teargas canisters at demonstrators on the famed ChampsElysees Ave in Paris as groups of ‘‘yellow jackets’’, as the protesters called themselves, tried to make their way to the presidential Elysee Palace.
Later, hundreds of protesters entered the bottom of the street dotted with luxury shops where the palace is located, and where President Emmanuel Macron lives, before being pushed back by security forces with shields.
In a similar scenario, police cleared out the huge traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, paralysed for hours by protesters.
French Interior Ministry officials counted nearly 283,000 protesters, mostly peaceful, throughout the day at more than 2000 sites, some setting bonfires or flying balloons.
However, some demonstrations turned violent.
In Troyes, southeast of Paris, about 100 people invaded the local prefecture, damaging the inside, Interior Ministry officials said. In Quimper, in Brittany, security forces used water cannon to disperse hostile protesters.
The protester who died, a 63yearold woman, was killed when a driver caught in the blockade accelerated in a panic at PontdeBeauvoisin, near Chambery, in eastern France.
A confrontation with protesters ‘‘got heated up for no reason’’ and the driver accelerated her minivan after ‘‘people started rattling her car’’, a protester who witnessed the inci dent told BFMTV. He said the woman told them she was taking her daughter to a doctor.
An investigation into the death was opened.
Eight of the 227 people injured were in serious condition, ministry officials said. A police officer and a firefighter who intervened when protesters attacked a closed service station were among the eight.
A total of 117 people were arrested and 73 of them were held for questioning.
Macron wants to close the gap between the price of diesel fuel and gasoline as part of his strategy to wean France off fossil fuels.
A ‘‘carbon trajectory’’ calls for continued increases. — AP