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Live - Yellow Vests back on the streets after Macron launches Great Debate

By RFI
France REUTERSJean-Paul Pelissier
JAN 19, 2019 LISTEN
REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

Yellow Vest protesters take to the streets for the 10th Saturday of nationwide protests, days after President Emmanuel Macron launched the Great National Debate to discuss the French people's grievances. Follow the updates here.

  • 11:30 – Crowds of Yellow Vests are building slowly in freezing temperatures across Paris. Dozens have gathered at the top of the Champs-Elysees, chanting, "Macron resign!".
  • 11:00 – “Citizens have the right to protest, journalists to inform!” Press freedom groups have gathered at the Place de la Republique in central Paris to denounce violence against journalists covering the Yellow Vest protest. Reporters Without Borders has started a petition to call for the gilets jaunes to refrain from attacking journalists. The petition has been signed by several news and photo agencies.
  • 10:50 – This week there have been calls to ban police use of non-lethal weapons, including rubber bullets, stun grenades and gas canisters, with at least 1,000 protesters injured – many requiring serious medical treatment – in the past two months of Yellow Vest unrest. On the police side there have also been around 1,000 injured.
  • 10:35 – Two gilets jaunes marches have been officially registered with the Paris Prefecture. The first is scheduled to begin on the left bank at Invalides and will move on to Montparnasse, rue de Rennes, boulevard St Michel and Place d'Italie before making its way back to Invalides. A second will gather at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées avenue and join the first march at Invalides.
  • 10:15 – Tight security checks are being carried out at major train stations and at toll ways leading into Paris and other major cities.
  • 10:00 – 5,000 police and gendarmes are maintaining security in Paris, with the areas around the Elysée Palace and the Place de la Concorde cordoned off. There is also a strong police presence at the National Assembly.
  • 9:45 – At least ten cities across the country are preparing for large demonstrations, including the capital, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Clermont,-Ferrand, Dijon, Toulon, Avignon, and Béziers.
  • 09:30 – France awakes to another Saturday with the police out in force in anticipation of Act 10 of the gilets jaunes. Some 80,000 police and gendarmes are deployed across the country – about the same number of Yellow Vests who are expected to take to the streets today.

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