“Yellow vest” protesters returned in force to the streets of France this weekend, clashing with police in several cities and smashing their way into a government Ministry in Paris with the help of a forklift truck.
The Interior Ministry put the number of protesters who took to the streets on Saturday at 50,000, compared with 32,000 on December 29 when the movement appeared to be weakening after holding a series of weekly Saturday protests since mid-November.
Break-in
Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux, who was evacuated from his Ministry in central Paris when a handful of protesters in high-visibility vests smashed down the large wooden door to the Ministry compound, denounced the break-in as an “unacceptable attack on the Republic”.
They briefly entered the courtyard where they smashed up two cars, broke some windows then escaped, he added, saying that police were trying to identify them from security footage.
President Emmanuel Macron did not specifically refer to the incident, but tweeted his condemnation of the “extreme violence” against “the Republic, its guardians, its representatives and its symbols”.
Demonstrators took to the streets of several other cities across France, with up to 2,000 people in Rouen, northwest of Paris, where some set up burning barricades. One protester was injured and at least two others were arrested, police said.
Some 4,600 protesters hit the streets of the southwestern city of Bordeaux, with some hurling stones at police who answered with tear gas and water cannon.
