FRANCE LATEST:  40-THOUSAND YELLOW VESTS ESTIMATED TODAY,  POLICE IN PARIS ATTACKED THIS EVENING

The government says that some 40-thousand Yellow Vests protesters were active on this Saturday before Christmas in France.   That's down from 66-thousand last week.

220 were reported arrested by evening nationwide with 81 kept in custody.

Among those arrested Eric Drouet who called on protesters this morning at 9am to come onto the streets of Paris in the 9th Arrondissement of the city.     This is an area where police would find it difficult to contain or control protesters.

The protest was moved from Versailles after police shut down railroad stations to prevent people from Paris reaching Versailles.

2000 protesters were estimated to be on the streets of Paris today.

By  evening there were some confrontations with police in the city including an incident with three police motorcyclists attacked by protesters throwing paving stones and scooters along the Champs-Elysees.

Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux denounced the actions of Yellow Vests protesters posting on Twitter that they were "racist, anti-Semitic, putschist".   He denounced a reported protest Friday night in southwestern France where a mock trial of President Emmanuel Macron was held and an effigy of him was decapitated.

In Toulouse, 2500 hundred protesters were on the streets and 2600 took to the streets in Bordeaux.

Border crossings with Spain, Italy and Germany were blocked by Yellow Vests protesters.

(INFORMATION FROM BFM-TV VIA GOOGLE TRANSALTION WAS USED IN THIS POST)