Paris cleans up after rioters hijack protest
The Champs-Elysees was again a scene of vicious confrontation as professional rioters infiltrated a protest.
Shop owners and cleaners were inspecting damage around the tourist centre of Paris yesterday after the Champs-Elysees was again a scene of vicious confrontation when “casseurs”, or professional rioters, sought to inflame the yellow-vest protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s rising fuel taxes.
Officers had responded with teargas after being targeted on Saturday night by protesters hurling rocks and other projectiles on the third weekend of demonstrations that have morphed into a broader rebuke of Mr Macron.
At least 412 people were arrested and 133 injured, including 17 of the 5000 police mobilised in clashes with far-left and far-right agitators, many in ski masks and spraying yellow paint over police in central Paris.
One person was in a critical condition after protesters pulled down one of the huge iron gates of the Tuileries garden facing the Louvre museum, crushing several people.
Mr Macron visited the Arc de Triomphe yesterday immediately after landing in Paris from the G20 summit in Argentina. He then headed to a nearby street where some of the worst damage had been done on Saturday night.
“Those responsible for this violence don’t want change or improvement, they want chaos,” Mr Macron had earlier said before leaving Buenos Aires. “No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc de Triomphe is defiled.’’
The scene on the Champs-Elysees was a mixture of anarchy, spot fires and teargas, with troublemakers throwing rocks and torching cars and construction equipment while near the Arc de Triomphe there were hundreds of peaceful protesters.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, speaking on French television, attributed the violence to “specialists in sowing conflict, specialists in destruction” but said the situation was largely under control.
Mr Castaner said while there were “200 peaceful demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees, (there were) 1500 agitators outside the security perimeter who came to fight”.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s office said he would cancel his trip to Poland for the COP24 climate summit, to meet Mr Macron after the violence.
Gilets jaunes (or yellow vest) activists, who had initiated a series of protests around the country in reaction to rising fuel costs, had passed through security checks and were angry that their mass community-based movement was being hijacked by people intent on causing trouble. While several dozens were allowed into the avenue after an ID check and search, many others — some wearing gas masks or ski goggles — remained behind and fought police manning barricades and water cannon. Protesters then led police on cat-and-mouse chases through other parts of the capital, setting cars and construction equipment alight and smashing windows.
“We’re a peaceful movement, but we’re disorganised — it’s a mess because we don’t have a leader,” Dan Lodi, a 68-year-old pensioner on the Champs-Elysees, said. “You always have some idiots who come to fight, but they don’t represent us at all,” he said.
Many pensioners and farmers across France have barricaded local tax offices and highways and closed road toll booths in a symbolic protest against Mr Macron’s tax policies.
Additional reporting: AFP
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