A policeman was hurt in his head after being pelted by cobblestone. He was evacuated to hospital. Two others were also reported wounded following violent scuffles with radical activists that have hijacked the march, news channel BFMTV reported.
Dressed mostly in black, hooded people had converged at the front of the demonstration in Montparnasse Boulevard in Paris as the inter-union procession was to start at 2:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT). They threw stones and bottles at anti-riot police and smashed a van’s windows.
Dubbed as Balck Blocks, they moved towards riot police, chanting anti-capitalism slogans. Some torched motorbikes and vandalized properties in Place de l’Italie, eastern Paris. The police fired tear gas.
According to Paris police headquarters, 288 individuals were arrested by 5:00 p.m. local time, with 220 remaining in custody on charges of committing violent acts and degradations.
Some protesters tried to storm a police station in the Paris’s 13th district and in the eastern city of Besancon.
Amid risks of violence escalation, prefecture urged peaceful protesters to break away from rioters who called on social media to make Paris “the capital of rioting.”
With orders from President Emmanuel Macron to take an “extremely firm stance” against any kind of violence, more than 7,400 policemen were deployed across Paris, with identity checks and bag searches being reinforced, especially in sensitive sites including train stations.
“Immediate response, arrests, intervention: police, gendarmes and firefighters are more than ever mobilized. No abuse should be tolerated on the sidelines of the demonstrations,” Paris prefecture said in a Twitter message.
Fearing violence and destruction of public properties, authorities have barricaded the neighborhood near the Elysee Palace, the National Assembly and Notre Dame Cathedral.
They also called on shops, restaurants and cafes along the route of the rally to close by Wednesday afternoon, erect barricades and board up windows for fear of looting.
Coordinated by the country’s main labor unions, more than 200 rallies across the country drew 151,000 participants, of which 16,000 in Paris, the French Interior Ministry estimated. The CGT put the number at 80,000 in the capital and 310,000 country-wide.
This year’s celebration of the International Workers’ Day had been dominated by the “Yellow Vest” movement which started in November 2018 to denounce high living costs and then turned into a social uprising against Macron.
Thousands of people wearing the high visibility vest which symbolizes the spontaneous movement, joined the labor unionists in cities from Marseille to Toulouse, in Bordeaux and Nantes in relative calm atmosphere to protest against the president’s reform drive.
