Barricades burn as new 'yellow vest' protests hit Paris

PARIS (AFP) – French ''yellow vest'' demonstrators clashed with riot police in Paris on Saturday in the latest round of protests against President Emmanuel Macron, but the city appeared to have escaped the large-scale destruction of a week earlier due to heavy security.

Protesters nonetheless set fire to cars, burned barricades and smashed windows in pockets of violence across the city center, clad in their emblematic luminous safety jackets, as armoured vehicles rolled through the streets.

''Dozens of shopkeepers have fallen victim to hooligans,'' Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo tweeted. ''Once again, this is deplorable.''

Clashes also broke out at protests in other cities including Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon and Toulouse, during a fourth weekend of nationwide protests against rising living costs and Macron in general.

In Paris, shouts of ''Macron, resign'' mingled with tear gas as thousands massed on the Champs-Elysees avenue.

Thick plumes of black smoke from fires rose high into the sky. Numerous shops and a Starbucks café were ransacked.

''The weather is crap and so is this government,'' a handful of protesters chanted as light rain began to fall. It turned to downpours by mid-evening, scattering many of the remaining demonstrators.

The outbreaks of violence were on a smaller scale than the destruction and looting of a week earlier, when some 200 cars were torched in the worst rioting in Paris in decades.