Several hundred “yellow vests”, 450 according to the police headquarters, marched through the streets of Paris on Saturday afternoon to mark the fifth anniversary of the movement.
The demonstrators set out in the rain around 2:30 p.m. from Place Franz Liszt (10th arrondissement), fluorescent fabrics on their shoulders, where drums sounded and demonstrators brandished a “#Destitution” banner in front of the Saint-Vincent-de church. -Paul, noted an AFP journalist. Others carried signs “Vests at the end of my dreams” and sang at the top of their lungs “We are here” or “Macronie is disgusting”.
Eight arrests
In the morning, at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, there were several dozen of them spraying yellow paint in the rain, quickly stopped by the intervention of the police. Eight people were arrested without incident, according to the Paris police headquarters.
The authorities were not expecting demonstrations this weekend on the scale of those of five years ago, but rather, according to a police source, symbolic actions on the part of “facetious yellow vests”.
The “yellow vest” movement, born in the fall of 2018 against the policies of Emmanuel Macron and against the high cost of living, has not been very active in recent months. A year ago, the Paris demonstration marking their fourth anniversary brought together 680 people, according to the police.