France’s “yellow vest” protesters yesterday took to the streets for the 16th straight weekend, some clashing with police who responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon.
By 2pm, around 5,600 people had joined the protests throughout the country, most of them in the capital Paris, well down on the estimated 11,600 out on the streets at the same time last week, the interior ministry said.
In Paris yesterday, the protesters, among them leading “yellow vest” figures Eric Drouet and Maxime Nicolle, marched peacefully under police surveillance.
Nine people had been arrested by early afternoon.
There was trouble, however, in Nice, Strasbourg, Lille and Nantes.
In the western city of Nantes police used teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon against protesters, some of whom hurled projectiles at them.
Teargas was also used elsewhere, including at protests in Bordeaux, Lyon, Morlaix and Arles.
This week’s demonstrations had been billed by organisers as a prelude to a “big month” of protests to mark four months of the weekly action and the end of a major “national debate” championed by President Emmanuel Macron.
The “yellow vest” protests, which have no organised leadership, began on November 17 over increasing fuel taxes.
They quickly grew into a broader anti-government rebellion fuelled by anger towards Macron.
The protests have sometimes descended into violence and clashes between police and the demonstrators.
Eleven people have died since the Saturday protests began.
“We are less numerous than normal, but we are still here...and we won’t go away because the situation has not improved,” said retired protester Murielle, who attended a demonstration east of Paris yesterday.
In Paris, some protesters set off from the Arc de Triomphe for a march through the west and south of the capital, while other groups remained on the Champs-Elysees, many of them hemmed in by riot police.
The Arc de Triomphe itself was railed off, with police vans and an armoured car positioned beneath it, and riot police behind makeshift fences blocked streets near the presidential Elysee Palace.
Broadcaster BFMTV showed initially calm protests in several provincial cities such as Nantes and Bordeaux as well.
Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic, in a report earlier this week criticising the police response as well as violence by protesters, cited government figures indicating that 2,060 demonstrators and 1,325 members of security forces had been injured in total.