French president is refusing to scrap controversial diesel levy, while defending tax cuts on the wealthy and businesses
French President Emmanuel Macron held a crisis meeting on Sunday after anti-government protests in Paris left 263 people injured and widespread destruction around the capital.
Macron met the prime minister, interior minister and top security service officials at the presidential palace in Paris after flying in from the G20 summit in Argentina.
Paris police said 412 people were arrested on Saturday during the worst clashes for years in the capital and 378 were still in custody.
A total of 133 had been injured, including 23 members of security forces who battled rioters for most of the day in some of the most famous parts of the capital.
“I will never accept violence,” Macron told a press conference in Buenos Aires before flying home. “No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc de Triomphe is defiled.”
As protests took place across the country, a motorist died overnight after crashing a van into traffic which built up due to a “yellow vest” demonstration in Arles, southern France, a local prosecutor said on Sunday.
The “yellow vest” anti-government protests that have swept France over the past fortnight were sparked initially by a rise in taxes on diesel.
