‘Yellow vest’ protests planned for Saturday, New Year’s Eve
PARIS: The “yellow vest” antigovernment protests that have rocked France will be held on Saturday and New Year’s Eve, and continue into 2019, several sources in the movement said Thursday.
“The yellow vests are still mobilised,” said Laetitia Dewalle, one spokeswoman of the protest movement which does not have a traditional leadership structure.
Several of the movement’s representatives said a seventh straight Saturday of protests will take place across the country this weekend.
Yellow-vest representative Benjamin Cauchy said protesters would be out on New Year’s Eve as well, “to show that the mobilisation will not end in the new year”.
Cauchy also warned that if the concessions made so far by President Emmanuel Macron did not add up, “we will end up with a large- scale mobilisation in late January”.
Earlier on Thursday, Paris city officials said that New Year’s Eve celebrations on the ChampsElysees will go ahead despite the protest plans on the famed avenue.
Tens of thousands of tourists and locals traditionally ring in the new year on the wide shopping boulevard, which ends with the Arc de Triomphe monument.
The Champs-Elysees has since last month been the epicentre of repeated violent protests against Macron’s government, with the Arc de Triomphe ransacked on December 1.
While the numbers turning out at protests across the country have dwindled dramatically, several thousand people are listed on Facebook as planning to attend what it calls a “festive and nonviolent event” on New Year’s Eve.
Paris officials said they would continue as planned with preparations for a fireworks display and sound and light show on the Champs-Elysees under the theme “fraternity”. — AFP