'Yellow Vests' Descend on Paris as Police Arrest Over 700 and Fire Tear Gas
PARIS — Antigovernment protests in France erupted in violence on Saturday for the fourth straight weekend, with demonstrators in Paris ripping down barricades from store fronts and setting vehicles on fire, while riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to control the crowds.
“Yellow Vests” demonstrators descended on the capital by the thousands, and some in the crowds clashed with the police, who had turned out in force. Officers blocked off roads and monuments as they tried to forestall a repeat of last weekend’s violence, France’s worst in decades.
Around the country, some 31,000 took to the streets, according to the authorities, including in cities like Marseille, Nice and Nantes, where the protests were initially relatively peaceful. But in Paris, the demonstrations turned violent as the day progressed.
The government had warned of a potential increase in violence, fearful that more hard-core elements would hijack the Yellow Vest demonstrations, named for the fluorescent yellow hazard vests adopted by the protesters as a sign of their distress.
Initially, their ranks were filled by members of the working poor from rural areas dismayed by a planned increase in a gasoline tax. The French government eventually suspended the planned gas tax increase before canceling it outright.
But that did not quell the outrage, which has morphed into much broader anger at Mr. Macron’s economic and social policies, and France’s declining living standards.
By the midafternoon in Paris, professional vandals, called “casseurs,” or “breakers,” had largely infiltrated the demonstration — fulfilling some of the worst fears of French officials.
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