Paris police use tear gas, water cannons on tax protesters

Yellow vests (Gilets jaunes) protestors gather as material burns during a protest against rising oil prices and living costs near the Arc of Triomphe on the Champs Elysees in Paris, on Novemb

(Image credit: Francois Guillot/Getty Images)

published 24 November 2018

Large-scale protests continued in Paris for a second consecutive weekend Saturday, with demonstrators registering their anger over fuel tax hikes and French President Emmanuel Macron's tenure more broadly. This time, the "yellow vest" protesters were met with an aggressive police presence, including use of tear gas and water cannons.

Parisian police estimated 8,000 protesters were on site, contained by some 3,000 police officers. Officials told The Associated Press six arrests were made, though no one was injured in the demonstration.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner claimed the demonstration was influenced by extremists from "the far right." "Their freedom of expression will be guaranteed," he said, "but it must not be exercised to the detriment of security, public order, and the right of everybody to come and go."

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More than 15,000 demonstrators are estimated to have assembled elsewhere in France Saturday. Last weekend's protests were far larger, with around 250,000 people turning out around the country.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.