Yellow vests: fewer clashes in Paris, tensions in the region ... What to remember from the act 19

A week after a violent "act 18", the 19th day of mobilization of "yellow vests" Saturday was much quieter despite some tensions. In total, 40,500 people demonstrated in France, against 32,000 a week earlier.

"Today, the republican order has been maintained." Interior Minister Christophe Castaner praised the way the police managed to contain the violence, Saturday, on the occasion of "Act 19" "yellow vests". A week earlier, "Act 18" was, for its part, particularly violent. For fear of a similar scenario, drastic measures had been taken. The police system was reviewed and reinforced in Paris and protests were banned in the key perimeters of several cities, such as the Champs-Elysees in Paris or the Capitol Square in Toulouse.

Mobilization up, 233 arrests

This Saturday, about 40,500 people, including 5,000 in Paris, demonstrated. It's more than last Saturday, where they were 32,000 in the whole country, including 10,000 in Paris. Christophe Castaner also noted that 233 arrests had taken place throughout France, 172 detentions in custody and 107 people verbalised for attempting to take part in forbidden gatherings. Across the country, 65,000 police and gendarmes were mobilized, as well as 30,000 firefighters.

In Paris, "8,545 preventive controls were carried out," said the Minister of the Interior. According to the Prefecture of Police, 96 people were arrested and 53 verbatim. In Nice or Bordeaux too, "the people who tried to brave the prohibition of demonstrations were arrested and sanctioned," he continued, reporting "80 arrests" in Nice.

"The correct instructions have been applied and the results are there: all declared demonstrations, in Paris and in the region, have been able to take place globally in the calm" and "attempts of violence and looting could be prevented, prevented, stopped ", he rejoiced. "All over France, many people were arrested even as they tried to reach Paris with baseball bats, projectiles, gas masks and the will to break," he said.

A policeman in a "very serious state" after a heart attack

In Paris, discouraged by an imposing police grid on the Champs-Elysees, dotted with blue vans, the "yellow vests" preferred to parade in the quiet between the Denfert-Rochereau square and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. The situation became tense at the end of the afternoon when part of the procession resumed the direction of the center of the capital. Protesters burned garbage cans and vandalized a storefront before being dispersed with tear gas.

On the sidelines of these excesses, place of the Republic, a policeman of a company of intervention made a cardiac malaise and was led to the hospital, in a "very serious state" according to the prefecture. For long minutes, the relief team performed heart massage on the law enforcement officer as he lay on the ground before he was rushed to the hospital. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said he had a "special thought" for the police, saying he was following "his situation closely".

The ambulance has just left the Republic Square https://t.co/wKs6fG6UPR

Tighter situation in the region

On the other hand, the skirmishes were made more numerous in region. In Montpellier, which had not been subjected to restrictions to demonstrate, clashes erupted and continued until the evening after the departure of a procession gathering 4,500 people according to the prefecture. The security forces summoned and then fired heavy teargas grenades, while protesters threw them cans and bottles of beer. Twenty people were arrested.

Tensions were also palpable in several cities where demonstrations had been banned in iconic and traditional gathering points of "yellow vests". In Bordeaux, stronghold of the movement, tensions were felt in the city center, again banned from the event, with the arrival of activists "black blocks" in the middle of the afternoon. In Toulouse, with the song of "we are there even if Macron does not want it", a few thousand "yellow vests" demonstrated in the early afternoon in the city center, trying a brief incursion on the Capitol Square which was forbidden to the demonstrators.

A septuagenarian seriously injured in Nice

In Nice, clashes erupted in the afternoon when a few hundred protesters tried to enter the perimeter prohibited gatherings, triggering fired tear gas. In total, the police made 80 arrests in the city of the Riviera, where a septuagenarian was seriously injured in the head by falling to the ground during a charge of the police, in the morning.

Firefighters evacuated her consciously. His daughter confirmed to AFP that it was a member of Attac 06, who had come for the right to protest, with a rainbow alterglobalist flag. "She suffers from several fractures to the skull, the rock (inner ear) and subdural hematomas," said her daughter, adding that the doctors had been "very, very scared" for her when they examined her.

Degradations in Lille

On the side of Lille, more than 1,500 "yellow vests", according to a police source, showed first in the calm, accompanied by two figures of the movement Priscillia Ludosky and Maxime Nicolle, before tensions broke out in several places. end of course.

The atmosphere was tense at the station, where a first meeting with a cordon of CRS took place, preventing the demonstrators from deviating from the declared course. The police then fired tear gas grenades a few more times; some garbage cans were burned, shop windows damaged and billboards broken, degradations unpublished in Lille since the first demonstrations in November.

Incidents broke out near the Lille-Flandres station between the black blocks and the police. Jets projectiles on one side, tear gas on the other. pic.twitter.com/wHJZhzM6QX

Arrived at the end of the demonstration in the Place de la République, the demonstrators found themselves stuck in Inkermann Street, which overlooks this square, mobile gendarmes and CRS only allowing them to pass by dropper, at a single angle , calling some people around 17h. The police charged a little later. According to the relief, two people were taken care of around 17:30 place of the Republic.