Several hundred “yellow vests,” 450 according to the police prefecture, marched through the streets of Paris on Saturday afternoon to mark the fifth anniversary of the movement.
The demonstrators set off in the rain around 2:30 pm from Place Franz Liszt (10th arrondissement), with fluorescent fabric on their shoulders, where drums were resonating and protesters waved a “Destitution” banner in front of the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, as observed by an AFP journalist. Others carried signs that read “Vests at the end of my dreams” and sang loudly “We are here” or “Macronie is disgusting.”
In the morning, at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, there were several dozen people spraying yellow paint in the rain, quickly stopped by the intervention of the police. Eight people were arrested without incident, according to the Paris police prefecture.
The authorities were not expecting demonstrations of the same magnitude as those of five years ago this weekend, but rather, according to a police source, symbolic actions from “facetious yellow vests.”
The “yellow vests” movement, born in the fall of 2018 against the policies of Emmanuel Macron and the high cost of living, has been less active in recent months. A year ago, the Parisian demonstration marking their fourth anniversary had gathered 680 people, according to the police.
