Saturday, January 12, 2019

FRANCE LATEST:  THE YELLOW VESTS RISE AGAIN, OFFICIAL ESTIMATE OF 84-THOUSAND TODAY


The police said that 50-thousand protested last week, but this week they say the number was up to 84-thousand.

The media locally is admitting that today's protests were predominately peaceful in France.

The Interior Minister for the government of President Emmanuel Macron Christophe Castaner heaped praise on the police, working long hours without being fully compensated for their overtime, receiving one-time partial payments in the hundreds of dollars for thousands of dollars worth of work in the last two months of 2018.

Some eight thousand protesters estimated in Paris.

Other statistics included 6700 for the protest called in the historic city of Bourges, about 150 miles to the south of Paris.   Some 500 protesters made it to the center of the city even though the prefect of the region had signed a decree banning protests there.

In Toulouse some 6000 and 4500 in Bordeaux, a consistent protest site during the Yellow Vests movement.    2600 took to the streets in Nantes.

In Normandy, the town of Caen was a location where 3000 gathered to protest.  2700 gathered at the Old Port in Marseille to demonstrate today.

1500 to 1800 were protesting in the northern city of Lille, some 1800 in Lyon south of Paris.

Police used tear gas on protesters in the eastern city of Strasbourg where both sides engaged in a fight with three police and four protesters injured.  1500 protesting there.

2300 protested in Saint-Brieuc, located in Brittany.    Police attacked protesters there injuring some.

Other protests including caravans of cars along highways in France as well.

The messages from the protesters continue to include calls for an RIC (Constitutional Referendum Intiative).   The RIC is a process where the National Assembly is petitioned by a certain number of voters and is then forced to pass legislation for submission to voters in a referendum.

Also on the agenda of some, freedom for the jailed boxer Christophe Dettinger.    He is in jail after his trial was delayed last week over punching police last Saturday.   His trial is set for next month.

And for others locking up the former bodyguard  of President Emmanuel Macron, Alexandre Benalla.
The Benalla scandal has dogged Macron for much of the year.

Among other things Benalla dressed up as a typical riot policeman and beat protesters at a May Day rally.   

Even after Benalla lost his job he continued to travel and do business on a diplomatic passport,, visiting the African nation of Chad just three weeks before President Macron traveled there.

It was revealed during the Christmas-New Year period that Benalla continued to communicate with Macron online via encrypted messages after he lost his job as well.

Also, the police report 244 arrests today with 201 being kept in custody.

Journalists for government controlled media were confronted on the sidelines of the protest in Rouen.


(UPDATED SATURDAY EVENING, GOOGLE TRANSLATION OF BFM-TV CONTRIBUTED TO THIS POST)


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