‘Yellow vests’ storm French ministry in new violence
“Yellow-vest” protesters returned in force to the streets of France at the weekend, clashing with police in several cities and smashing their way into a government ministry in Paris with the help of a forklift truck.
The interior ministry put the number of protesters who took to the streets on Saturday at 50,000, compared with 32,000 on December 29 when the movement appeared to be weakening after holding a series of weekly Saturday protests since mid-November.
Government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux, who was evacuated from his ministry in central Paris when a handful of protesters in high-visibility vests smashed down the large wooden door to the ministry compound, denounced the break-in as an “unacceptable attack on the Republic”.
They briefly entered the courtyard, smashed up two cars, broke some windows and then escaped.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his condemnation of the “extreme violence” against “the Republic, its guardians, its representatives and its symbols”.
Griveaux had on Friday criticised the yellow-vest movement, describing those still involved as agitators who were seeking to overthrow the government.
Police said about 3,500 demonstrators had turned up on the Champs-Elysees on Saturday morning.
Some then made their way south of the river to the wealthy area around Boulevard St Germain, where they set fire to a car and several motorbikes and set up burning barricades, prompting police to fire teargas to try to disperse them.
Police said 35 people had been arrested.
Demonstrators took to the streets of several other cities across France, with up to 2,000 people in Rouen northwest of Paris, where some set up burning barricades.
One protester had been injured and at least two others arrested, police said.
About 4,600 protesters hit the streets of the southwestern city of Bordeaux, with some hurling stones at police, who answered with teargas and water cannon.
Five police had been hurt and 11 people arrested, authorities said. Several cars had been torched and shop windows broken, they said.
Further south in Toulouse, 22 people were detained after clashes that erupted after 2,000 people demonstrated.
And in the central-eastern city of Lyon, several thousands took to the streets, blocking access to the A7 motorway and causing traffic jams for those returning from Christmas holidays in the mountains.
The yellow-vest movement began in rural France over plans to increase fuel taxes.
But it later ballooned into a wider revolt against Macron’s pro-market policies and governing style, with 282,000 people joining the first Saturday rally on November 17.
Macron initially refused to make any concessions, but in mid-December, after weeks of violence, he scrapped the planned fuel-tax hike and promised extra cash for minimum-wage earners as well as tax cuts for pensioners.
The protests have turned into the biggest political crisis of his 20-month presidency.
Although public anger appeared to abate following his concessions and over the holiday period, the brief arrest on Wednesday of Eric Drouet, one of the leaders of the movement, appeared to rekindle resentment among his supporters.