Macron considers deploying army to prevent another ‘war zone’ in Paris
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has held an emergency cabinet meeting to consider ‘‘all options’’, including declaring a state of emergency and deploying soldiers, to prevent a repeat of the violent protests that left swathes of central Paris looking like a war zone.
Macron, facing the worst political crisis of his presidency, returned yesterday morning from a G20 summit in Argentina and went directly to the Arc de Triomphe to assess the damage caused by so-called ‘‘yellow vest’’ antigovernment protesters.
The arch, which lies at the top of the prestigious Avenue des Champs-Elysees, was where the violence began early on Saturday morning, local time, before spreading throughout the day as far as the Louvre and the Opera districts.
Police said 133 people were injured and 412 arrested as protesters torched dozens of cars, smashed windows, looted stores, and threw rocks at police in what Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, said was the worst unrest the city has seen since student uprisings of 1968.
‘‘The situation is very serious. We are going through a major crisis,’’ she told Le Parisien newspaper.
The yellow vest movement spread to Belgium on Saturday, where police turned water cannons on anti-government protesters who threw stones and torched two police vehicles in central Brussels. Protests also erupted in the Netherlands.
The revolt was sparked by planned fuel tax rises, but has turned into a broad opposition front to Macron, a 40-year-old pro-business centrist elected in May 2017, who is accused of being the ‘‘president of the rich’’ and of neglecting the struggles of ordinary French people.
After last week’s street battles, Macron said the streets of Paris resembled ‘‘war scenes’’.
This weekend the violence was even worse, with Paris police using a total of around 10,000 tear gas and stun grenades to try to disperse rampaging demonstrators.