France Cleans up Champs-Elysees After Yellow Vest Rioting
Luxury stores, restaurants and banks on the Champs-Elysees assessed
damage Sunday after they were ransacked or blackened by life-threatening
fires. Tourists took pictures as shop owners tried to repair broken
windows and city workers scrubbed away graffiti, much of it targeting
Macron.
The renewed violence by a movement that had been fizzling in recent
weeks was a wakeup call to a president seen as favoring the elite.
Macron promised a crackdown on troublemakers he said "want to destroy
the republic, at the risk of killing people." But he also tweeted that
the rioting showed that his government needs to do more to address
protesters' concerns.
Macron cut short a weekend ski trip to meet Saturday night with security
officials at the crisis center overseeing the police response.
On the Champs-Elysees, an eerie calm replaced the hours-long chaos of
the day before on the street that Parisians call "the most beautiful
avenue in the world."
No police were visible Sunday, and traffic rolled down cobblestones that
had been the scene of battles between rioters and police struggling to
contain them.
In the midst of Saturday's violence, firefighters said that a mother and
her child were barely saved from a building set ablaze because it
housed a bank on the ground floor. Smoke from fires set by protesters
mingled with clouds of tear gas sprayed by police.
The protesters sought to revive their movement Saturday by marking the
end of a two-month-long national debate called by Macron that protesters
say failed to answer their demands for economic justice.
Police had braced for an uptick of violence, but appeared caught off guard by the speed and severity of Saturday's unrest.
Authorities and some protesters blamed black bloc extremists who come to
demonstrations with the express goal of attacking police and damaging
property. They dress in black, including masks and hoods to make it
harder for police to identify them, and often target symbols of
capitalism or globalization.
Overall, the Interior Ministry said that around 32,000 yellow vest
protesters demonstrated nationwide Saturday, including about 10,000 in
Paris. That was up from last week, when about 26,000 people marched
around France including 3,000 in Paris.
However, it was far from the 250,000 yellow vest demonstrators who
protested in December — and a fraction of the 145,000 people who took
part in peaceful climate marches Saturday around France, according to
the ministry's figures.
The four-month-old movement tapped into widespread discontent with high
taxes and diminishing living standards in working class provinces — and
anger at Macron, seen as too friendly with the rich and powerful and out
of touch with French concerns.
But the yellow vest movement has lost support because of protest
violence, internal divisions and concessions by Macron's government. The
remaining protesters appear increasingly extreme.
VOA
AFEEF:
Hadhwanaagnews marnaba masuul kama aha Aragtida dadka kale. Qoraaga ayaa xumaanteeda, xushmadeeda iyo xilkeeda sida. waxa kaliya oo Hadhwanaagmedia dhiirigalinaysaa, isdhaafsiga aragtida, canaanta gacaliyo talo wadaagga!