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Demonstration of "yellow vests" in Nantes, Saturday, May 11. Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP

With nearly six months of mobilization, the "yellow vests" have failed to deny the breathlessness of their movement during their XXVI Saturday mobilization.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, there were 18,600 people in France, including 1,200 in Paris, the lowest mobilization since the beginning of the movement on 17 November. A count disputed by the "yellow vests" which counted about 37,500 demonstrators.

This slowdown of the movement has long been expected by the authorities, as the crisis of "yellow vests" is the worst suffered by Emmanuel Macron since coming to power two years ago and coincided with a decline in popularity. Its rating has however risen to 32%, according to the latest poll, published Friday, a little over a month of the European elections on May 26, for which the list of the presidential majority is neck and neck with that of the extreme right.

" We're here, we're here, " however, assured several hundred "vests" that parade in Paris. Access to the Champs-Elysees was once again closed, fearing a repetition of the violence that regularly enamels these processions.

Strikes in Lyon

In Lyon (center-east) or Nantes (west), where the "yellow vests" had announced " national " events, the processions gathered respectively about 2,000 people in an atmosphere that quickly became tense. The mobile gendarmerie and the CRS, which framed very closely the head of the procession, were the object of jets of bottles, stones or firecrackers. They fought back with numerous shots of tear gas. Clashes that have made 10 wounded side of the police, at least one side demonstrators according to AFP and led to 9 arrests on the day.

In Nantes, a team of the Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) was the target of throwing projectiles by demonstrators, leading to an intervention by police and shooting LBD. An image news reporter from the news channel CNews said he was hit by LBD shots in the lower abdomen, but said he was " fine ".

In Bordeaux (south-west), the former stronghold of the movement, the mobilization continued to decline with 700 "yellow vests", while a hundred of them only marched in Nice (south-east).

(With Afp)