Low turnout for 25th week of French protests

Paris: Turnout appeared to be low on Saturday for the 25th successive week of demonstrations around France by the Yellow Vests protest movement. The Interior Ministry estimated that there were 3,600 protesters on the streets at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT), broadcaster France Info reported, compared with 5,500 at the same time the previous week. The protests came three days after much larger May Day marches saw fierce clashes in Paris between demonstrators and security forces, with hundreds of arrests and dozens of people injured. In Paris, several hundred protesters, many wearing the yellow bibs that have become the largely leaderless movement’s symbol, gathered for a march that was set to take them past several hospitals in a show of support for the public health service. Many chanted slogans against Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who had claimed on May Day that protesters had “attacked” a major Paris hospital and that nurses had to protect an intensive care unit from them. The minister partially retracted his comments two days later, after videos and eyewitness accounts suggested that the protesters had just been fleeing clashes and tear gas when they tried to enter an unmarked back door leading to the intensive care unit. On Saturday, broadcaster BFMTV reported minor clashes between protesters and police in Lyon. Meanwhile, 1,400 arts workers, including actresses Juliette Binoche and Emmanuelle Beart and novelists Edouard Louis and Annie Ernaux, expressed support for the Yellow Vests in a column published on the website of left-wing newspaper Liberation. — DPA