Paris, France | AFP | The French police dispersed this Saturday with tear gas to demonstrators who participated in the convoys against the anticovid restrictions on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, an AFP journalist reported.
Thousands of opponents of the vaccination pass, in caravans called “freedom convoys”, arrived in Paris from all over France, defying the ban on participating in protests that cause blockades in the capital.
Around 2:00 p.m. local time (1:00 p.m. GMT), a hundred vehicles managed to reach the Champs-Elysées, one of the most famous avenues in the world, where passengers and pedestrians waved flags shouting “freedom.”
To disperse them, the police fired tear gas, in scenes that evoked the 2018 and 2019 clashes with the “yellow vests”.
The security forces evacuated the pedestrians surrounding the Arc de Triomphe and were cornering the protesters towards the gardens that are at the other end of the avenue.
According to the police, 337 people were fined by 2:30 p.m. for “participating in an unauthorized demonstration.”
Many motorists circulated two or three days before arriving in Paris and camped on Friday at the gates of the capital.
