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Bloomberg
A seventh Saturday of protests by France’s “Yellow Vests†began slowly, continuing a downward trend since weekly demonstrations began in mid-November over the cost of living and a lack of household purchasing power.
French television showed images of several hundred protesters gathering in southwest Paris, with small numbers in the touristic centre and on the Champs-Elysees avenue, the scene of violent clashes with police on previous weekends.
Outside the French capital, around a thousand Yellow Vests gathered in the southern port city of Marseille, while about 10 people were arrested in Amiens, north of Paris, where protests had been banned after unrest, the Agence France-Presse reported.
Some Yellow Vests were already planning to gather again on Paris’s Champs-Elysees during Monday’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, AFP added, when President Emmanuel Macron is due to make a traditional annual address to the nation.
The Yellow Vests protests, named after the high-visibility jackets motorists must keep in their cars, started in early November with road blockages across France, with an initial demand for lower prices at the pump expanding into general anger about the rising cost of living and Macron’s governing style.
The protests led to violent clashes with police in the French capital in early December, with looting, torched cars and damage to shops, restaurants and property.