Tear gas fired on Champs-Elysées amid largely peaceful 'yellow vest' protests
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Tear gas billowed Saturday across the French capital’s protest-scarred Champs-Elysées after a day of largely peaceful demonstrations and water cannons shot into the crowds on the fifth straight weekend of protests by the country’s “yellow vest” movement.
The demonstrations against France’s high cost of living — sapped by cold weather, rain and recent concessions by French President Emmanuel Macron — were significantly smaller Saturday than at previous rallies, some of which scarred parts of Paris with vandalism and looting.
A few thousand people marched up and down the famed shopping street in Paris, a spirited yet peaceful gathering that edged into violence as the afternoon wore on. Riot police clashed with demonstrators as the occasional tourist darted from their hotel or a brave Christmas shopper took a peek at the neighbourhood’s mostly boarded-up storefronts.
In the late afternoon, a water cannon in a line of police vans confronting protesters sprayed water into a crowd in frigid weather to disperse them. Firefighters put out a fire on a side street leading to the Champs-Elysées and limited scuffles broke out between protesters and police.
‘We’re being bled dry’
Protesters made clear they wanted to keep up the pressure, even if their numbers were far smaller than previous weeks, which saw rioters smashing and looting stores and setting up burning barricades in the streets.
Pierre Lamy, a 27-year-old industrial worker wearing both a yellow vest and a French flag over his shoulders, said the movement had long stopped being about the fuel tax hike that sparked the protests in November, but was now focused on economic injustice.
A protester wearing a yellow vest waves the French national flag in Paris during a demonstration Saturday against rising costs of living. (Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP/Getty Images)
“We’re here to represent all our friends and members of our family who can’t come to protest, or because they’re scared,” he said, walking to the demonstration with three friends. “Everything’s coming up now. We’re being bled dry.”
French law enforcement was out in force. About 8,000 police and 14 armoured vehicles were deployed in Paris for the demonstration, and streets of central Paris were honeycombed with checkpoints where officers in riot gear checked bags and coats for weapons and helmets.
86 people taken into custody
Police said 86 people were taken into custody in Paris. No details were given as to why they were taken in. Police in riot gear were seen tackling one protester and dragging him off the Champs-Elysées, while his friends said he was doing nothing but exercising his protest rights.
The yellow vest movement, which takes its name from the fluorescent safety vests French motorists must have in their vehicles, has been fuelled by a sense that Macron’s government is hurting ordinary workers and retirees with too many taxes. Without any clear form or leadership, it has attracted a wide range of disgruntled people across France’s political spectrum, including some violent militants.
A woman dressed as ‘Marianne,’ the national symbol of the French Republic, stands in front a French riot policewoman during a demonstration in Paris Saturday. (Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)
“Respect my existence or expect my resistance,” read one banner held aloft by protesters who converged on the Champs-Elysées.
Max Werle, a 56-year-old father of nine, said the protests were his first-ever demonstrations.
‘It’s not a left and right thing’
“I’m here for my children,” he said, adding that his daughter had given birth in a fire truck on Monday because the local hospital in Loiret outside Paris had closed years ago.
The office administrator said the protesters were there “to defend our cause … It’s not a left and right thing.”
Yellow vest protests were also being held Saturday in other parts of France, where roads and highways were being blocked. The number of deaths linked to the protest rose to seven after Belgian police said a man accidently crashed his car Friday night into a truck that had stalled at a yellow vest roadblock on the Franco-Belgian border.
Macron had called for calm before the demonstrations, a call echoed by his government.
‘Protesting is not smashing’
“Protesting is a right. So let’s know how to exercise it,” the government tweeted from its official account, with a 34-second video which begins with images of historic French protests and recent footage of “yellow vest” protesters rallying peacefully before turning to violence.
“Protesting is not smashing. Protesting is not smashing our heritage. Protesting is not smashing our businesses …. Protesting is not smashing our republic,” the video says.
Macron acknowledged in a speech earlier this week that he is partially responsible for the anger displayed during the protests, and has announced measures aimed at improving workers’ spending power. He has so far refused to reinstate a wealth tax that was lifted to spur investment in France.
But on the streets of Paris, some protesters were saying the president still didn’t understand them.
“I think that Macron isn’t in touch with what the yellow vests want. I think the yellow vests need to continue speaking out and the problem is that in the countryside,” said Julie Verrier, a protester from Picardie in Normandy in northern France who had been participating in protests there for the past three weeks and had travelled to Paris for Saturday’s demonstration.
“Local city halls are closed, so we can’t go there to express and write our complaints and our wishes,” she said. “So coming here is the only way we have to say that French people need to be heard.”
Article source: https://www.thelocal.fr/20181022/language-quiz-how-well-do-you-know-your-french-idioms
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