French yellow vest protesters have started fires, smashed up luxury shops and clashed with police in the 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron.
By Angela Charlton and Thomas Adamson, Associated Press Reporters
March 16 2019 3:10 PM
French yellow vest protesters have started fires, smashed up luxury shops and clashed with police in the 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron.
Large plumes of smoke rose above the rioting on Paris’ landmark Champs-Elysees Avenue, and a mother and her child were just barely saved from a fire in a building as protests intensified.
French police tried to contain the demonstrators with tear gas and water cannon, with limited success.
One perilous fire targeted a bank on the ground floor of a seven-storey residential building.
As fire engines rushed over, a mother and her child were rescued as the blaze threatened to engulf their floor. Eleven people in the building, including two firefighters, sustained light injuries, as other residents were evacuated.
The rioting comes at the end of a two-month national debate which Mr Macron organised to respond to protesters’ concerns about sinking living standards, stagnant wages and high unemployment.
After the weekly protests dwindled recently, protesters were hoping to breathe new life into their movement against a president who they see as favouring the elite.
The violence started on Saturday when protesters threw smoke bombs and other objects at officers along the famed avenue – the scene of previous rioting – and started pounding on the windows of a police van, prompting riot police to retreat.
Simultaneous fires were also put out from two burning newspaper kiosks, which sent black smoke high into the sky. Several protesters smiled as they posed for a photo in front of one the kiosk’s charred remains.
