Sun 19 January 2019:
Police in Paris arrested more than 30 people on Saturday following clashes with demonstrators in the latest protest by the yellow vest movement.
Broadcaster Franceinfo reported that tensions were high at the Gare de l’Est railway station, where rubbish bins were set on fire and windows were broken.
As seen in footage shared on social media, the police pushed hard against the protestors. The footage shows one already bloody protester lying on the ground while a police officer repeatedly strikes and pushes his knees into the injured man’s stomach. Protesters call out to the officer but get stopped by another while recording the brutality.
“We’re suffocating with this government, who wants to bring us to our knees,” Moukam said.
“It’s out of the question that he (President Emmanuel Macron) touches our pensions. We have worked all our lives to be able to earn a dignified retirement,” she said. “It’s exactly what he is challenging.”
In other videos shared on social media, barricades are seen on the streets partially on fire, while police and protestors confront each other.
The yellow vest movement, named for the high-visibility security bibs they wear, has organized demonstrations against the policies of Macron for more than a year.
In recent weeks, yellow vest protesters have joined trade unions at rallies against Macron’s planned pension reforms. After weeks of ongoing transport strikes against the pension reform, the situation in local public transport in Paris was expected to improve at the beginning of the week.
Saturday’s clashes came on the 45th day of a strike that has hit train and metro traffic and caused misery for millions of commuters in Paris especially.
Trains are becoming more frequent, however, and Paris’s metro drivers voted to suspend their action from Monday, their union, the National Union of Autonomous Trade Unions (UNSA), announced Saturday.
“The chances are good that things will pick up again on Monday,” Laurent Djebali of the UNSA-RATP union told the newspaper Le Parisien on Saturday.
Many employees would have to “recharge their batteries” first Djebali said, adding that there was a determination to continue the fight against the reform. The union urged its supporters to join the next mass protest on Jan. 24.
Thanks to the government’s concessions on the reform plans, the situation on the rails had already eased considerably last week. The metros of many lines were running for most of the day, rather than only at peak times. The strikes and protests against the government’s pension reforms have been going on for more than six weeks.
