[REUTERS] Groups of young men with faces masked, some carrying metal bars and axes, rioted on the streets of central Paris on Saturday, setting a dozen vehicles ablaze and torching buildings, unleashing the city’s worst urban unrest for years.| What odds that Antifa cadres are causing much of the trouble from this “leaderless” movement entirely organized on the internet, dear Reader? |
Close to the Place Vendome, Christmas trees decorating the streets were upended, piled in the middle of an avenue and set alight, prompting chanting from scores of protesters.
Youths smashed the windows of the flagship Apple Store on the Champs Elysees which opened just a few weeks ago. A boutique on the Rue Rivoli was broken into and looted. Banks were vandalized and scrawled with anti-government graffiti.
Police said several hundred far-right and far-left extremists had infiltrated a demonstration by some 5,000 calmer “yellow vest” protesters who had gathered in the capital to denounce President Emmanuel Macron’s fuel tax increases.
“We are in a state of insurrection, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jeanne d’Hauteserre, the mayor of the city’s 8th arrondissement, near the Arc de Triomphe, told BFM TV.
It is the third week of national unrest by the movement — named after the high-visibility jackets that all motorists in France must carry in their vehicles — and the second consecutive weekend of violent disturbance in Paris.
As night fell on the city, there were overturned vehicles in flames around the Arc de Triomphe, an assault rifle had been stolen by protesters from a police van, and fires were burning in popular tourists areas such as Opera.
| The Times of Israel adds: |
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
. Thousands of police were deployed to try to contain the mayhem.
Central Gay Paree was locked down by Saturday afternoon, with all roads leading away from the arc closed off as more police moved in. Over 20 Gay Paree metro stations were closed on Saturday evening for security reasons, the Gay Paree public transport company RATP said.
French authorities said they counted 75,000 protesters Saturday across the country, including 5,500 in Gay Paree, numbers that were less than last week’s protest but produced much more violence.
| Update from The Times of Israel at 12:20 ET: |