About 500 people, according to the police, marched Saturday during the interregional demonstration of "yellow vests" in La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendée, which left five people injured in clashes with the police.
Protesters from Nantes, Angers and La Rochelle, had met at the bus station at 13:30, and beat the pavement of the Vendée city until the dispersion around 18 hours.
A protester evacuated by firefighters
The demonstration, started quietly, was tense around 15 hours, forcing mobile gendarmes to use tear gas. A dozen grenades were fired, said an AFP correspondent, and a protester was wounded in the nose, reported street medics. She was evacuated by firefighters.
Clashes between protesters and security forces continued when protesters blocked the roundabout Bernard Palissy, the largest in Vendée in terms of traffic. And lit a fire quickly extinguished by firefighters.
Wounds to the head and broken nose
The protesters also tried to enter the shopping area Flâneries which has about fifty shops, before being violently repulsed with tear gas, said the correspondent of AFP.
According to a police source, a total of five protesters were injured. They suffer from sores in the head, a broken nose and a lady, who received a pomegranate element in the back, was burned, according to several sources.
The demonstration of La Roche-sur-Yon was banned in part of downtown Friday by order of the prefect, fears of overflowing in the image of a previous demonstration in the city on 9 February.