More than 10,000 people wearing red scarves on Sunday marched through Paris in protest at “yellow vest” violence during anti-government demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets over the past 11 weeks.
Since November last year, French President Emmanuel Macron has offered concessions and talks in attempts to quell the weekly rallies that often end in violent clashes with police in the biggest challenge yet to his government.
In the rival protest, the crowds marched through the rain from Place de la Nation to the Bastille monument, some chanting “Yes to democracy, no to revolution” as they waved French and EU flags.
Dubbed the “red scarf” movement, the centrist initiative is the brainchild of an engineer from Toulouse who was horrified by the violence seen among more extremist “yellow vest” demonstrators.
Many protesters joining the rally said that they were not against “yellow vest” demands for greater help for France’s poor, but were sick of the clashes and destruction that have marked protests for 11 consecutive Saturdays since mid-November.
Laurent Soulie, an organizer of the march, said that the protesters responded to a call to the “silent majority who have remained holed up at home for 10 weeks.”
A nursing manager who gave her name as Marie-Line said that she believed the “yellow vests” had just cause to “grumble,” but she came “to say that this verbal and physical violence must stop.”
“It’s not a protest against the yellow vests — it’s a protest to say: ‘You’ve made your demands, we are listening to them,’” French Senator Francois Patriat of Republic on the Move told reporters at the protest.
“There are other places to discuss this than the street. You cannot block the country and economy because you consider the president to be illegitimate,” Patriat said.
The protest was almost double the size of the “yellow vest” demonstration in Paris on Saturday, when about 4,000 people came out to rail against Macron.
The numbers of “yellow vests” have ebbed over the past few weeks, after Macron announced a series of policy climbdowns and launched a two-month national consultation.
Saturday’s protest in Paris saw a prominent “yellow vest” activist, Jerome Rodrigues, badly injured.
Both Rodrigues and his lawyer, Philippe de Veulle, said that he was hit in the eye by a police rubber bullet, an anti-riot weapon that has become highly controversial in France.
“He is in shock. He will be handicapped for life. It is a tragedy for him and his family,” de Veulle told TV station BFM.
Rodrigues, a construction worker, was placed in an artificial coma overnight after the incident, which happened at the Bastille monument. The 40-year-old, who has 50,000 followers on Facebook, was live-streaming the protest on the Web site when he was hit.
De Veulle said that Rodrigues was struck in the eye with a “flashball,” referring to the 40mm rubber projectiles used by French riot police.
French Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior Laurent Nunez on Sunday told TV station LCI that there was “no evidence” to show that Rodrigues was hit by a police rubber projectile.
The devices — which are not used in most European countries — have been blamed for dozens of serious injuries at “yellow vest” protests, leading to calls to ban them for good.
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
ICE DISPUTE: The Trump administration has sought to paint Good as a ‘domestic terrorist,’ insisting that the agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense Thousands of demonstrators chanting the name of the woman killed by a US federal agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, took to the city’s streets on Saturday, amid widespread anger at use of force in the immigration crackdown of US President Donald Trump. Organizers said more than 1,000 events were planned across the US under the slogan “ICE, Out for Good” — referring to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is drawing growing opposition over its execution of Trump’s effort at mass deportations. The slogan is also a reference to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother shot dead on Wednesday in her
RSS