Chaos and Violence Grip France as Far-Left Mobs Storm City Halls, Torch Streets
Mopsters threaten death to Macron
Rioters stormed city halls in Marseille and Lille, set Lyon’s tourist office ablaze, looted Paris stores as 550,000 people marched and police made 400 arrests.PARIS—Stones and fireworks were already flying across Place de la République before Saturday’s demonstration against rising costs had even started. By 1 p.m., hundreds of black-clad militants, many of them with their faces hidden behind masks, were facing off with riot police in the square. It was the start of an afternoon of violence that spread across the capital.
Protesters hurled rocks and fireworks at the police, who fired back with tear gas and water cannons. Shortly after 2 p.m., a car went up in flames in the middle of the square. Bicycles, street furniture and a newspaper kiosk were torched as well, and looters forced their way into a nearby Monoprix supermarket and ransacked it.
Hundreds of demonstrators chanted “Everyone hates the police,” “Revolution,” and “We are all antifascists.” Another chant took aim at the president himself: “Louis XVI: We beheaded him. Macron: We can do it again!”
The trouble soon spilled out of République. Over the course of the afternoon, groups broke away from the authorized march routes and headed for Place de la Madeleine, Place Vendôme, and the Champs-Élysées, where demonstrations had been banned.
According to AFP, police stopped one group a short distance from the Élysée Palace, the official residence of French President Emmanuel Macron. On Boulevard Haussmann, looters broke into the Galeries Lafayette department store, in one of the busiest shopping districts in the city.
Near the Opéra, tourists were caught in clouds of tear gas as police and protesters clashed. Shoppers hurried out of the area, businesses pulled down their metal shutters, and some of the main shopping streets of central Paris came to a standstill.
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