The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Police use armored trucks, tear gas to thwart protesters
PARIS — The rumble of armored police trucks and the hiss of tear gas filled central Paris on Saturday, as French riot po lice fought to contain thousands of yellow-vested protesters venting their anger against the government in a movement that has grown more violent by the week.
A ring of steel surrounded the president’s Elysee Palace — a key destination for the protesters — as police stationed trucks and reinforced metal barriers throughout the neighborhood.
Saturday ’s yellow vest crowd was overwhelmingly male, a mix of those bringing their financial grievances to Paris — the center of France’s government, economy and culture — along with groups of apparently experienced vandals, who tore steadily through some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, smashing and burning.
Police and protesters also clashed in the southern French cities of Marseille and Toulouse.
The government’s plan was to prevent a repeat of the Dec. 2 rioting that damaged the Arc de Triomphe, injured 130 people and tarnished the country’s global image. But although Saturday’s protest in the French capital started out quietly, by late afternoon at least 551 people had been taken into custody and 60 people had been injured, according to Paris police and hospitals.
Some stores along the city’s elegant Champs-Elysees Avenue had boarded up their windows as though bracing for a hurricane, but the storm struck anyway, this time at the height of the holiday shopping season. Protesters ripped of f the ply- wood protecting the windows and threw flares and other projectiles as they were repeatedly repelled by tear gas and water cannon.
All of the city’s top tourist attractions — including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum — shut down for the day, fearing the kind of damage that had hit the Arc de Triomphe. Subway stations in the city center also closed and the U.S. embassy warned its citizens to avoid all protest areas.
Yet in a sign of the financial disconnect that infuriates many of the protesters, within a block of the famed boulevard, people were sitting in Paris cafes, drinking cocktails and chatting.
Amid the melee, President Emmanuel Macron remained invisible and silent, as he has for the four weeks of a movement that started as a protest against a gas tax hike and metamorphosed into a rebellion against high taxes, eroding living standards and what many see as his inability to address the concerns of France’s regions and ordinary people.
Before the clashes, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had urged calm.
“I ask the yellow vests that want to bring about a peace- ful message to not go with the hooligans. We know that the hooligans are only strong because they hide behind the yellow vests, which hampers the security forces,” he said.
Even as blue armored trucks rumbled over cobblestone streets and police moved yet again against protesters on the Champs-Elysees, an even larger environmental march moved peacefully Saturday toward the city’s distant Republique Plaza.
A scattering of yellow vests, as well as women, children and retirees, were among the 17,000 participants marching to demand action against climate change. One sign read “No climate justice without fiscal and social justice.” The march came in support of U.N. climate talks taking place in Poland.
National police estimated the number of protesters in Paris at 8,000, although the yellow vests said their numbers were far higher and Associated Press reporters saw city streets densely crowded with thousands of people. French authorities deployed 8,000 security officers in the capital alone, among the 89,000 who fanned out around the country.