Nearly 1,000 arrests were made as hundreds of thousands of people took part in another day of protests across France which were followed by some clashes late on Saturday, officials have said.
After a day of largely peaceful demonstrations, police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters in a number of cities including Paris, while barricades were set alight in Marseille and people ripped boards from a shop in Bordeaux.
But officials have so far managed to avoid rioting and looting on the scale seen last weekend, which resulted in some of the worst scenes of disorder in France’s modern history.
The interior ministry said an estimated 410,000 people protested on Saturday, while the unions put the number at about 800,000.
Some 70,000 police officers were deployed and restrictions imposed in several cities to prevent the latest protests over the cost of living and poor school conditions from descending into the kind of chaos which saw officers outnumbered, hundreds of businesses looted and buildings torched.
President Emmanuel Macron had decreed earlier this week that only demonstrations organised by a recognised trade unions would be permitted. Hundreds of people have been jailed for vandalism, arson and looting after fast-track court hearings in recent days.
Clashes between protesters and riot police in Paris erupted at the end of a peaceful march from the city’s Porte d’Italie towards Porte de Vincennes on Saturday, where the police operation included an elite unit that usually deals with organised crime and counter-terrorism.
Some protesters were seen erecting makeshift barricades and pelting officers with projectiles, while police baton-charged groups of masked youths who were smashing the windows of a car dealership.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said that “several thousand radical activists gathered at the rear of the march, including around 500 individuals identified as rioters”, the AFP news agency reported.
In the southern port of Marseille, rubbish bins were set ablaze and metal sheets used to block streets. A law enforcement vehicle was seen driving through a burning barricade in France’s second-largest city.
Meanwhile, some protesters in dark clothing and face coverings were seen taking boards off a building to build a street barricade in the southern city of Bordeaux.
In Lyon, police used tear gas grenades to disperse a crowd which had reportedly gathered in an area deemed off-limits by the local prefecture.
(BBC)