PARIS IS BURNING
Protests over press freedom
Cars were set alight and the Central Bank of France building was hit with a fire missile in Paris on Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to city streets throughout France to protest a security bill that would prevent reporters from covering police brutality.
Demonstrators demanding a free press clashed with police who lobbed tear gas to disperse crowds, according to reports.
The draft legislation would make it a crime to publish photos or video of police officers with the intent of harming their “physical or psychological integrity.” The French government said the law is needed to protect police against increasingly violent attacks.
Mostly peaceful protests have been going on for the past week after a video of police allegedly beating Michel Zecler, a black music producer, sparked outrage over the draft law.
But the demonstrations turned violent in Paris on Saturday as some protestors began pelting police with rocks and paving stones.
Protesters in the French capital can be seen on social-media images setting furniture and vehicles on fire as police blocked access to parts of the city.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted that 37 police officers had been injured in the melee.
“I again condemn the unacceptable violence against the police,” he tweeted.
At Paris’s Republique square nearly 50,000 demonstrators assembled carrying red union flags, French flags and handmade signs denouncing police violence and calling for the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron and Daramin.
“We have to broaden the debate, and by doing that we say that if there were no police violence, we wouldn’t have to film violent policemen,” said Assa Traore, an anti-police-brutality activist whose brother died in police custody in 2016.
Although professional journalists have been among the most outspoken over the security bill, it could have an even greater impact on other people who use their cellphones to film police during violent arrests, activists said.
“There were all those protests in the summer against police violence, and this law shows the government didn’t hear us,” protester Kenza Berkane, 26, said. “It’s the impunity. That’s what makes us so angry.”