HUGE demonstrations of workers, students and youth in towns and cities across France came under violent attack on Saturday by armed French gendarmerie, who used tear gas canisters, stun grenades and water cannon against the mainly young protesters.
Over 100,000 youth who rallied in Paris demanding improvements in education, were joined by tens of thousands of public service workers, trade unionists and Yellow Vest cost of living protesters.
‘Young people are anxious about their futures and their failing schools; the Yellow Vests are distressed by the cost of living, which is literally exploding,’ said Jean Pierre of the French Human Rights League on the Paris protest.
The CGT union backed the protests, calling for ‘higher wages and pensions, lower prices and the protection of public services that meet people’s needs’.
With her eyes pouring with tears from the tear gas, Amelie, a mother of three who was protesting with her teenage daughter, said: ‘We will keep up the pressure to make sure someone is taking care of our children’s future.’
Large numbers of riot police officers dressed in full gear launched gas canisters in the early hours of the protest at noon in Paris, despite a scarce presence of people.
The smell of tear gas could be felt throughout the city, as well as the sound of stun grenades that became more frequent as the day wore on.
Protesters denounced police brutality and as tensions ran high they were violently dispersed from Paris’s huge Place de la Republique where they were marching peacefully, and sent towards the wide Boulevard Magenta.
Police arrested about 2,000 protesters who came under attack from the gendarmerie on Saturday.
Riot police charged at protesters in central Paris, hitting them with batons.
‘It’s like we had a war,’ Paris resident Mehmet Ozeden said.
Many shops were daubed with graffiti, some reading ‘tax the rich’ and ‘eat the rich’.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez attacked the protesters, accusing them of ‘outrages’ committed by ‘several thousand far-left individuals who were determined to target public buildings and confront the police’.
Later, they were joined by ‘delinquents who looted and ransacked numerous businesses in several cities in France’, he claimed.
Nunez said more than 2,000 people have been taken into custody.
French President Emmanuel Macron held an emergency meeting with top government officials yesterday afternoon, before a televised address to the French nation at 7pm last night.
Macron, who had spent Friday evening, the night before Saturday’s protests, dancing with his wife at a Celine Dion concert, threatened in a post on X: ‘Those who have ransacked, attacked the prefectures as well as businesses, looted even our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished.’
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