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French 'yellow vest' protester loses fingers in violent unrest

A "yellow vest" protester in France had his fingers ripped off during clashes at the parliament building in Paris, as the protests went into their 13th week. The protester attempted to pick up a rubber pellet grenade and it exploded in his hand, French media reported. There was also an arson attack on the home of the head of France's National Assembly, though it was not clear if the attack was linked to the protests.

The "yellow vest" protests began in mid-November over fuel taxes. They have since broadened into a revolt against the President, Emmanuel Macron, and a political class seen as out of touch with common people.

According to French government figures, 51,400 people joined the protests on Saturday, 4,000 of them in Paris. That was down from the previous week, when official figures put the number at 58,600, 10,500 in Paris. Representatives for the yellow vests disputed the previous week's numbers, claiming the turnout was higher.

In Paris on Saturday, the protesters marched from the Champs-Elysees to the city's parliament buildings, where a violent contingent broke down barriers and threw projectiles at police. Police responded with tear gas and anti-riot munitions.

According to an eyewitness, the person who lost their hand was a photographer attempting to take pictures of people breaking down barriers around the National Assembly building. "When the cops went to disperse people, he got hit by a sting-ball grenade in the calf," 21-year-old Cyprien Royer told AFP news agency. "He wanted to bat it away so it didn't explode by his leg and it went off when he touched it. "We put him to one side and called the street medics. It wasn't pretty: he was screaming with pain, he had no fingers - he didn't have much above the wrist."

Paris police confirmed that a demonstrator was injured in the hand and been treated by paramedics, but did not identify the victim.

Capetonian wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 16, 2019 6:01 pm

The Italians must have surrendered.

Unrest returns to Paris with worst yellow vest violence in weeks

Anti-government protesters hurled rocks and paving slabs at police, looted boutiques, smashed up a luxury restaurant on Paris’s famed Champs-Elysées and set a bank on fire on Saturday.

A mother and her baby trapped on the second floor of the building, as flames surged up from the bank branch on the ground floor, were rescued by firefighters. The bank offices were gutted and 11 people were slightly injured, including two police officers.

Smoke and tear gas shrouded the Champs-Elysées and at least 109 people were arrested in the worst outbreak of violence on the fringes of a “yellow vest” demonstration in Paris for several weeks.

President Emmanuel Macron has cut short his skiing holiday to return to Paris to chair an emergency meeting over what the authorities are describing as "intolerable violence and damage".

Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, tweeted that those who set the bank on fire “are neither demonstrators nor troublemakers: they are killers.”

Grinning “yellow vest” protesters posed for photographs in front of the shattered facade of Le Fouquet’s, a restaurant that earned Nicolas Sarkozy the nickname of “President Bling-bling” when he celebrated his 2007 election victory there.

Much of the violence on the 18th consecutive Saturday of protests against President Macron’s economic reforms was blamed on anarchists, far-Right and ultra-leftist agitators rather than the “yellow vests” themselves.

Police estimated the number of demonstrators at about 32,000 across France. About 5,000 police officers were deployed in Paris alone. The numbers of protesters have dwindled since the “yellow vest” movement began in November, amid growing anger over income inequality and a lack of public services in rural areas and small towns.