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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jon Henley in Paris

Paris on lockdown for gilets jaunes protests – as it happened

Late afternoon summary

We’re going to wind this live blog up now.

Police and a hard core of rioters on the fringes of the gilets jaunes movement continue to play games of cat-and-mouse in two or three areas of Paris but most of the peaceful demonstrators have now left the capital, and marches are winding up in other cities around France too.

Riot police backed by an armoured vehicle charged a last group of protesters on the Champs-Elysées in Paris just after nightfall after a day of confrontations and unprecedented police efforts to prevent new violence.

Police and local authorities estimate some 31,000 people took part in Saturday’s demonstrations, including around 8,000 in Paris and 2,000-3,000 in cities such as Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse.

A nationwide March for the Climate which took place on Saturday afternoon drew 25,000 people in the capital alone, and a lot less media coverage.

By 5pm there had been more than 700 arrests of gilets jaunes and agitators, including more than 550 in Paris. A number of cars have been torched and shops ransacked, and 55 people have been injured.

In general, the level of violence and destruction of property was lower than last Saturday, thanks in part to a much tougher police strategy that included stop-and-search and led to a large number of preventive arrests early in the day.

Some 89,000 police were deployed nationwide, including 8,000 in Paris. My colleague Kim Willsher has a full account of the day’s events here: for the time being, the authorities’ show of force appears to have paid off.

Updated

Saturday’s protests in numbers, according to the authorities:

  • an estimated 8,000 gilets jaunes in Paris
  • 673 stopped and questioned
  • 551 arrested
  • 55 people, including some police officers, injured

Most of those arrested have been detained for “participation in a gathering intending to prepare violent acts against people or the destruction of property”.

The leader of the far-right National Rally (formerly known as the Front National), Marine Le Pen, has again called on President Macron to address what she called the “suffering that is being expressed” through the protests:

He must come up with a response, come out of the Élysée palace, stop walling himself in inside the Élysée ... The response of the president of the Republic to this movement cannot just be based on policing.

John Lichfield, the veteran Paris-based journalist and Guardian commentator, has been out for “a little tour” as dusk falls in the capital.

He concludes that most of the provincial gilets jaunes protesters are now heading home, but a hard core of “casseurs” (agitators) remains, divided into small groups around the capital:

Emmanuel Macron is due to address the nation early next week, the Elysee palace said on Friday, adding that the president did not want to “pour oil on the flames” by speaking before Saturday’s protests.

What are the consequences of the gilets jaunes movement for Macron? The Guardian’s Paris bureau chief, Angelique Chrisafis, says this in her explainer:

This is the first big crisis of Macron’s presidency. The 40-year-old pro-business, pro-Europe centrist has staked his political identity on insisting he would never give in to street protests. But polls suggest he is seen as not listening to the concerns of ordinary working people on low incomes, and he is under pressure to make concessions.

It is damaging that Macron – whose own fledgling political movement, La République En Marche, was styled as a grassroots movement to listen to the people – was taken by surprise by this sudden tax revolt. Although Macron beat the far-right Marine Le Pen in last year’s presidential election, the mood of distrust of the political class never went away.

The first 18 months of Macron’s presidency were defined by his drive for businesses to become more competitive; he cut taxes on companies and transformed France’s wealth tax, easing the tax burden on the very wealthy.

He is now under pressure to consider the gilets jaunes’ demands, and to that end the government executed a U-turn on 5 December when it scrapped the fuel tax rise, one day after announcing a six-month freeze on the policy.

According to the latest figures from the interior ministry, 1,000 people have been stopped and questioned across the country, and 720 remain in custody.

Separately, the gendarmerie have said some 5,000 cars have been stopped and checked on the national road network, with a several “violent individuals, carrying dangerous objects, subsequently arrested”.

Several people, including two photographers from Le Parisien have been wounded by flash balls - a kind of rubber bullet - fired by police, the paper said.

One photographer, hit in the neck, was taken to hsopital after losing consciousness. A policeman apologised, saying he was “aiming at someone else”.

Updated

Kim has been in court this week, watching some of the protesters arrested last week being tried:

It was a depressing performance in which the main actors seemed to be missing, leaving a cast of extras to take centre stage in France’s latest national political drama.

The accused were mostly young men in their 30s, some a little younger, a few older, neatly dressed in smart but sombre clothes.

Well-spoken, tidy, clipped beards and short hair, these gilets jaunes (yellow vests) seemed hardly the stone-throwing, shop-smashing rabble those packed into the public benches had come to watch.

Few earned more than €1,200-€1,500 a month and they admitted it was a struggle to make ends meet. They were largely unknown to the police until now and had just spent their first nights in jail.

...

They were not there because they had been demonstrating; that was a fundamental right, the judges declared, but because they were accused of being casseurs – vandals, looters, rioters, breakers. The proof was in their pockets and bags: stones, gloves, sticks, slingshots, even fireworks.

You can read Kim’s full piece here.

The Guardian’s Kim Willsher is on the Place de la République in central Paris, where all appears relatively calm:

By mid-afternoon, several cars have been set ablaze, mainly in the wealthy 16th and 17th arrondissements, and police continue to play a game of cat-and-mouse with small groups of violent protesters in the 3rd, not far from the Pompidou Centre.

The general level of damage in central Paris is so far significantly less than last Saturday, French media report. According to the police, 615 people have been stopped and questioned in Paris since Saturday morning, and 508 arrested.

Several people have been injured in Toulouse, Le Monde reports, and tensions are mounting in Lyon:

And Angelique Chrisafis speaks to an elderly Marais resident who is relieved not to be among the “bad ones”:

Veteran Paris reporter and occasional Guardian opinion writer John Lichfield is out and about as things degenerate on the avenue Marceau. He notices a change from last week’s demonstrations:

Paris police have reported that 30 people have been wounded in the gilets jaunes protests so far on Saturday, including three police officers.

The statement did not say how severe the injuries were.

Tensions remain high on the central Grands Boulevards and rue Réaumur, reports Le Parisien.

In the capital’s third arrondissement, police have carried out a cavalry charge to disperse a small group of violent rioters, according to BFMTV.

The French interior ministry denies a rumour that police officers are disguising themselves as protesters, and urges people to watch out for fake news.

The gilets jaunes movement is being partly fuelled by conspiracy theories and fake news on social media, including widely spread claims that the president, Emmanuel Macron, has scrapped France’s constitution or is “selling France” to the United Nations, World Bank or other international organisations planning to let millions of migrants take over France.

The reports have been viewed several million times.

Updated

BFMTV reports an attempt to ransack the famous Drugstore brasserie on the Champs-Elysées, as protesters try to dismantle the protective wooden cladding put up last night:

Updated

A reminder that while many tourist attractions (the Eiffel tower), museums (the Louvre) and major department stores were ordered to stay closed today, life in much of Paris away from the main boulevards is carrying on very much as normal:

In the 17th arrondissement, Le Monde’s reporter saw a group of young men wearing yellow high-vis vests overturn scooters and set them on fire. Disgusted, more peaceful gilets jaunes protesters tried to stop them:

Angelique Chrisafis has been talking to gilets jaunes protesters who are on their way back from Paris, fleeing teargas:

Celine added:

Updated

Some provincial gilets jaunes protesters have been prevented from boarding trains to Paris as part of the stringent security measures aimed at preventing a repeat of last week’s rioting.

A national police spokesman said officers had been stationed at train stations around the country and ordered to check all passengers and turn away those carrying equipment that could be used to “cause damage to people or property”.

Updated

“Yellow vest” protests are spreading beyond France. Belgian police have fired teargas and water cannon at stone-throwing protesters near the government offices and parliament, Associated Press reports.

About 400 protesters smashed street signs, chanted slogans calling on the prime minister, Charles Michel, to resign, and threw paving stones, fireworks, flares and other objects at police.

About 100 have been arrested, a police spokeswoman said. In the Netherlands, about 100 protesters gathered in a peaceful demonstration outside the Dutch parliament in The Hague and at least two protesters were detained in central Amsterdam.

Updated

Donald Trump has had this to say on the latest gilets jaunes protest (which, remember, originally stemmed from resistance to an increase in diesel tax):

(I don’t think many people on the streets of Paris are chanting “We want Trump”).

Updated

If the Champs-Elysées remains relatively calm, trouble is spreading to other areas of Paris.

According to BFMTV, police and gendarmes on Boulevard Haussmann and the Grande Boulevards in the centre of Paris have used water cannon and teargas to disperse protesters who were trying to erect barricades using bus shelters and benches.

A barricade has been set on fire near République.

Boulevard Haussmann and the Grand Boulevards are near Paris’s best-known department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, both shut on what would normally have been one of their busiest days just before Christmas.

Updated

Protests are also under way in many towns and cities outside Paris, of course.

In Lyon, gilets jaunes joined a separate climate march, which totalled 7,000 demonstrators. Other marches are getting underway in Bordeaux and Nantes.

In Toulouse, Le Monde’s correspondent reports that about 300 demonstrators have gathered and are singing the French national anthem ahead of a planned protest march due to begin soon:

Updated

More figures, this time from the interior ministry:

By 1pm local time on Saturday, 31,000 gilets jaunes protesters had been recorded across France, compared with 36,000 at the same time last weekend.

Police had stopped and questioned a total of 700 people, including 575 in Paris.

The relative calm appears to be holding, at least on the Champs-Élysées.

Police have announced a total 361 arrests during Saturday morning, most of them preventative.

According to Le Parisien, “despite some tense moments on the Champs-Elysées and several attempts to bloc the périphérique ring road at Porte Maillot, no major incidents have been reported in the capital”.

Updated

A charter of gilets jaunes’ “suggestions to end this crisis” has been circulating widely on Facebook.

While far from “official” - the movement has no national structure, central organisation or even agreed representatives - it does illustrate the diverse, and sometimes contradictory, nature of their demands:

Economy/work:

- a full review of taxation, with no citizen to be taxed at more than 25% of income; an immediate 40% increase in the minimum wage, pensions and benefits; “mass hirings” in the state sector to restore quality of service in hospitals, schools etc; 5m new homes; make banks “smaller”

Politics:

- France’s constitution to be rewritten “by the people and for the interests of the people”; lobbying to be banned; Frexit: France should leave the EU; recover €80bn lost to tax evasion each year; halt and/or reverse all privatisations; removal of “useless” speed cameras; complete reform of education system, removal of all “ideologies”; quadruple budget of judicial system, which must be simplified, free and accessible for all; break up media monopolies and halt cosy relationship between media and political class; open media up to the people

Health/environment:

- 10-year guarantee on products to end planned obsolescence; ban plastic bottles; limit power of pharmaceutical companies; ban GM foods, carcinogenic pesticides, monoculture; reindustrialise France to reduce imports and therefore pollution

Geopolitics:

- Pull France out of Nato and foreign wars; end the plunder of French-speaking Africa; prevent migration flows that cannot be welcomed or integrated given current “civilisational crisis”; scrupulous respect of international law and engagements

Updated

The interior ministry has posted this video of police stopping and searching protesters before they are allowed to continue without any “objects or equipment that could be used as weapons”:

Paris police have announced that by midday in the French capital, 514 people had been stopped and questioned - already more than during during last Saturday’s protests - and a total of 272 arrested, mainly preventatively.

Reporters on the Champs-Élysées suggest this new tactic may be working: for the time being, there has been no repeat of the serious violence seen last weekend, and after a few early skirmishes the atmosphere appears, for the time being, to be relatively calm:

Updated

Angelique has also been speaking to Dan Lodi, a 70-year-old retired furniture salesman, who took part in the May 68 protests:

Lodi added:

In France we’ve been having revolutions since 1789, we got rid of the king but we’re still fighting because the rich still have power and inequality is still there.

In 68, everyone was behind us, we paralysed the economy with the largest strike in modern French history. So we need everyone now to get on board & demonstrate. It’s not enough for the gov to promise little tweaks, they need to rethink economic policy.

I’m against the violence, I’m staying away from tear-gas. But I understand some people’s view – they think that in May 68, the government only listened when we picked up paving stones & started throwing them. I’d rather the gov listened to peaceful demonstrators.

My pension has shrunk because Macron increased taxes on pensioners, my children can’t make ends meet. My 20-year-old grandson is here today because he sees no future, even as an IT student. The government has to start listening.

Updated

If you are not sure who the gilets jaunes are and what they want, Angelique Chrisafis has this:

A grassroots citizens’ protest movement began in early November against a planned rise in the tax on diesel and petrol, which Emmanuel Macron insisted would aid the country’s transition to green energy. A poll at the time found that the price of fuel had become France’s biggest talking point.

The movement was named “gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) because protesters wear the fluorescent yellow high-vis jackets that all motorists must by law carry in their cars. But what began as a fuel tax protest has now morphed into a wider anti-government movement.

Unlike previous French protest movements, it sprang up online through petitions and was organised by ordinary working people posting videos on social media, without a set leader, trade union or political party behind it.

A first national day of protests was held across France on Saturday 17 November and the protests have continued daily, including roadblocks, barricades of roundabouts and the blockading of fuel depots.

You can fine Angelique’s full explainer here.

Our France correspondent, Kim Willsher, was also out and about in Paris early this morning and reported much of the city eerily deserted:

To avoid a repeat of shocking scenes of cars burning and the smashing and looting shops by fringe elements of the movement, police and gendarmes blocked off areas of central Paris, including roads around the Elysée palace.

Officers searched bags and backpacks confiscating masks used as protection from teargas, helmets and anything that could be used as a projectile.

Elsewhere, Paris was eerily quiet for a Saturday in December, one of the busiest days of the year for shopkeepers. Instead many stores were shut and boarded up.

Some without metal shutters or boarding, put high visibility vests in their window in a show of support and the hope of sparing them from destruction.

You can read her full story here.

The Guardian’s Paris Bureau chief, Angelique Chrisafis, is at the Place de la République in central Paris and has been talking to some of the gilets jaunes protesters, many of whom have travelled from some distance:

Updated

Tensions are mounting near the Champs-Elysées, the focal point of the protests, where the first rounds of tear gas have been fired as police try to disperse a crowd of an estimated 1,000 protesters. This from Aline Leclerc, a reporter for Le Monde:

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the fourth weekend of gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests in France.

Large parts of Paris are in lockdown and many tourist attractions, museums, major department stores and metro stations shut as the capital braces for possible violence and rioting from a fringe element of the protest movement.

Nearly 90,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilised across the country, around 8,000 of them in the capital, officials have said, alongside a dozen VBRG armoured vehicles.

Police have said more than 350 protesters have already been detained on Saturday morning – mainly preventive arrests as people arrived at Paris mainline stations.

We will keep you up to date with developments throughout the day after last weekend’s protests saw the capital’s worst street unrest in more than half a century and France’s young centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, faces the stiffest challenge of his term so far.

Updated

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