Yellow Vests Movement Revived, Paris Police Drags Woman by Hair

Nawal Sayed

On the first year anniversary of the Gilets Jaunes movement, known as Yellow Vests, protesters re-took to streets of Paris and other French cities and engaged in clashes with security forces on Saturday.

The protesters torched cars and pelted police with stones and bottles and police fired tear gas and water cannon in Paris.

A total of 28,000 people demonstrated across France on Saturday including 4,700 in Paris, the interior ministry said.

This was more than in recent weeks but 10 times less the record 282,000 estimated for the whole country on Nov. 17, 2018, the first day of the protests.

In Paris, police took 124 people in for questioning and 78 people were in custody , the authorities said.

Also, French police was touch in dealing with violent and chaotic protesters. The security forces were seen dragging a woman by her hair at street.

Demonstrators, many clad in black and hiding their faces, vandalized an HSBC bank branch at the Place d'Italie. They set trash bins on fire, hurled cobblestones and bottles at riot police, and erected barricades.

Several cars were set ablaze. Police responded with tear gas and blasts from water cannon.

Clashes also broke out between demonstrators and police near the Porte de Champerret, close to the Arc de Triomphe, as protesters prepared to march across town towards Gare d’Austerlitz.

Police also intervened to prevent a few hundred demonstrators from occupying the Paris ring road.

The demonstrators clashed with firefighters and tried to prevent them from extinguishing fires.

The yellow vests protests, named for the high-visibility jackets worn by demonstrators, erupted in November 2018 over fuel price hikes and the high cost of living. The demonstrations spiraled into a broader movement against President Emmanuel Macron and his economic reforms.

The protests have lost strength in recent months but leaders called for people to turn out on Saturday to mark the anniversary.