Conservative lawmaker Eric Ciotti has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to ban Saturday’s planned yellow vest demonstrations to prevent further protest violence. He said: “I am asking [the government] to ban all protests scheduled for this Saturday, February 23, to avert further yellow vest violence. I supported the expression of this anger that started off as a people’s revolt against too-high taxes, unfair fiscal rules and economic inefficiency but the violence has become unbearable, unacceptable and needs to stop. We can no longer tolerate it.”
French police fired tear gas to disperse protesters who threw projectiles and set bins on fire in Paris and other big cities on Saturday, as the 14th straight weekend of demonstrations took a violent turn in the afternoon.
The anti-government protesters were also accused of anti-Semitic abuse and anti-police attacks.
Prosecutors have launched an investigation into a group of protesters who hurled anti-Semitic insults at philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut during a yellow vest demonstration in Paris.
In a separate incident, a police car stuck in a traffic jam in Lyon, southeastern France, was stoned by rioters.
The protests, which have no organised leadership and are named for motorists’ fluorescent safety jackets, began three months ago over increasing fuel taxes but quickly grew into a violent street rebellion fuelled by working class anger towards Mr Macron’s aloofness and liberal economic policies.
Conservative chief Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the opposition Les Républicains party, also called on the government to ban unauthorised yellow vest protests and to sanction rioters in response to the clashes.
He said: “When a protest is not declared, it’s called an unlawful assembly. And it is these unlawful gatherings that lead to violence.
“In the face of thugs, what we need is a firmer response. Unauthorised protests and protests we fear will spiral into violence must be banned,” he continued, before slamming the Macron government’s “weak response” to the social crisis that has rocked France.
What started off as a “peaceful” protest movement has become increasingly violent on the fringes, he warned.
Three months into the grassroots movement, we have “less and less” protesters and “more and more” violence, the conservative leader continued, adding that a “culture of permissiveness” had taken root in France and that “the president of the Republic has given in to the violence.”
Health Minister Agnès Buzyn also called for an end to the yellow vest protests on Monday, telling LCI television that the once-peaceful movement had become “radicalised” and was “drifting off course”.
In an interview with Europe 1 radio, Marc Fesneau, the minister in charge of relations with parliament, also decried the spike in protest violence as he condemned the “unbearable” and “improper” acts committed by yellow vests.
A poll published on Sunday showed dwindling support for the yellow vest demonstrations, with more than half of those interviewed saying they wanted the protests to end.
The poll of 1,012 people, conducted online by Ifop for the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) on February 13-14, showed that 52 percent of French people want the weekly protests to stop, up 15 percentage points in one month.
Some 38 percent of those surveyed, for their part, said protesters should hold a 15th consecutive Saturday of protests, down 14 points from last month.
The number of protesters has fallen from highs of over 300,000 nationwide in November to some 51,000 last week, according to the French interior ministry.