Protests and Police Response in Paris

And you can see the flash bangs. Uh, this is when the police, I think this is

usually police launching the, uh, stun grenades that they fire into the

crowds further back.

Either that, or I was going to say, or journalists', uh, cameras flashing.

It's very, very difficult to tell from these images.

But you can see on the ground as well just the huge amount of debris that's been

left behind by these protests, uh, right in the center of Paris.

Very, very disruptive. All the schools closed.

Uh, the protesters very much getting their

point across, but also this is causing,

uh, enormous disruption, uh, for the people of Paris as well.

You can hear the sound of the crowd as well, shouting and cheering there.

And you can see some of the, uh, banners in the background there,

the flags waving

in the back of this shot.

So here from this shot in the center of Paris, you can see the protesters on the

right, a, a line of police there, and then behind the police,

uh, the debris that's been left behind by

protesters and set on fire earlier.

It seems like the protesters at both end of the street, and the police in the

middle trying to separate them and push them back down these avenues.

But then the police slowly moving in on the protesters.

Journalists sort of in the middle as well.

And then you can see tear gas being deployed on this side to try to push the

protesters back at the other end of the avenue as well.

And as I say, these scenes will be being repeated in a

number of French

cities. We've seen protests in Leon and also in

Marseilles as well. Um, and they vary

between, uh, having standoffs like this with the

police, with riot police in

riot gear, uh, and also peaceful protests with those

with placards and flags. But there appears to be flashpoints

that, that appear to be kicking off at various

points.

We've seen, uh, these protests starting back in September,

and the police

there charging the protesters and getting them to move back

down the avenue.

You can see the fire engine there being brought in to try to quell the, uh,

the flames of this big pile of rubbish, which is burning in the middle of the

street here, and the police clearing a path for it.

And trying to clear those pres- protesters away using, uh, stun grenades,

but you

hear the sound of them going off constantly.

It looks like desks are being burned in the middle of the

street.

I'm not sure if that's symbolic because of the, the nature of these protests.

It actually looks like now what we're hearing and seeing are

fireworks, which are being fired towards the police's

direction rather than these

being the stun grenades that are being fired in the protesters'

direction.

Some really strong pictures then that we're seeing right now

that we're bringing

you here live on Sky News from, uh, the streets in the center of

Paris,

where police try to control demonstrators.

The police firing stun grenades, tear gas,

um, into the crowds of protesters.

Fireworks coming back in the other direction.

The police holding the line.

But the fireworks coming back will slow down, I think, the

emergency services from getting out of that vehicle.

The, uh, fire brigade have turned up to try

and put out this fire, but they are

now putting it out. There they are.

The police trying to protect them as they do that.