San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘Yellow vest’ protesters blame police for injuries
PARIS — France’s “yellow vest” protesters returned to the streets Saturday to keep up the pressure on President Emmanuel Macron’s government and to decry the number of people being injured by police during the anti-government demonstrations.
Multiple protests in Paris and other cities denounced Macron’s economic policies, which they view as favoring the rich, for the 12th straight weekend of demonstrations. Most were peaceful.
In Paris, scuffles broke out between some protesters and police around the Republic plaza, northeast of the city center, where hundreds of demonstrators headed on Saturday afternoon. Police managed to disperse most of the crowd.
Some clashes between protesters and police also took place in the southern cities of Bordeaux, Toulouse and Valence.
Thousands of demonstrators in the French capital paid tribute to the yellow vests who have been injured during clashes with police in an effort to unite the movement despite growing divisions. Several competing groups of yellow vests are getting ready to present candidates for the European Parliament election in May, while other figures insist the movement must remain nonpolitical.
The government says around 2,000 people have been injured in protests since the movement began Nov. 17, including at least four serious eye injuries. Separately, 10 people have died in traffic accidents related to yellow vest actions.
France’s Council of State ruled Friday that security forces have a right to use controversial high-velocity rubber bullets for crowd control.
Benjamin Cauchy, a yellow vest spokesman from southern France who came to the Paris protest, called that a “regrettable decision.” The weapon “is extremely harmful, imprecise and in the end is causing more sorrow than security,” he told BFM television.
The yellow vests movement was named after the fluorescent safety vests that French motorists must carry.
Sylvie Corbet is an Associated Press writer.