Paris, SAEDNEWS, Nov. 29: Some 133,000 people took to the streets across France, according to the government's figures. Demonstrators in the French capital carried red union flags, the national tricolour flag and homemade signs denouncing police violence, demanding media freedom or calling for Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s resignation.
Protests also took place in Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Nantes and other French cities.
Police fired tear gas in Paris after demonstrators launched fireworks at them, put up barricades and threw stones. "Thirty-seven police officers and gendarmes were injured during the demonstrations, according to provisional figures. I once again condemn the unacceptable violence against the security forces," Darmanin wrote on Twitter.
The crowd included journalists, journalism students, left-wing activists and citizens of varied political stripes expressing anger over what they perceive as a hardening police tactics in recent years, especially since France's Yellow Vest protests against economic hardship in 2018.
“There were all those protests in the summer against police violence, and this law shows the government didn’t hear us... It’s the impunity. That’s what makes us so angry," protest participant Kenza Berkane, 26, told AP.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said images of police beating a Black music producer in Paris put “shame” on the country, with top politicians and sportsmen expressing outrage over the incident.
The case, coming on the heels of a violent evacuation of migrants in central Paris, has shocked the nation and galvanised opponents of the government's controversial new security law (Source: France 24).
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