PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT AGAIN IN PARIS OVER SECURITY LAW (VIDEO)

Sat 05 December 2020:

The weekly nationwide protests are becoming a major headache for President Emmanuel Macron’s government, with tensions intensified by the beating of a black music producer by police last month.

Violence erupted again in Paris on Saturday for the second consecutive weekend at a mass protest against a new security law, with demonstrators clashing with police, vehicles set alight and shop windows smashed.

Windows of a supermarket, property agency and bank were broken while several cars burst into flames along Avenue Gambetta as demonstrators marched towards the central Place de la Republique, AFP reporters said.

Objects were also thrown at police who responded by using tear gas, in a repeat of the violent scenes from the protests last weekend against the security law that would restrict publishing pictures of the faces of police.

PROTESTS TURN VIOLENT AGAIN IN #Paris OVER SECURITY LAW
Violence erupted again in Paris on Sat for the second consecutive weekend at a mass protest against a new security law, with demonstrators clashing with police, vehicles set alight and shop windows smashed.#France #Paris pic.twitter.com/Cm8ipSIRC8

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) December 5, 2020

Some demonstrators used objects left into the streets to create impromptu barricades that they then set on fire.

Protesters, some letting off smoke bombs and firecrackers, shouted slogans like “Everyone hates the police.”

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on Twitter that 22 people had been detained in Paris so far by police, who he said were facing “very violent individuals”.

Media freedom and human rights groups have led protests for weeks to have the government scrap or revise a bill that would restrict the filming of police, saying it would make it harder to prosecute cases of abuse.