PARIS: French authorities have defended aggressive police actions to contain violence at yellow vest protests after a policeman was seen briefly brandishing a gun at a surging crowd in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron called for “the most severe” legal repercussions against violent protesters. After a sixth straight weekend of demonstrations by the grassroots movement demanding more help for French workers, Macron called for “order, calm and unity” while on a visit to Chad this weekend.
The numbers of protesters were sharply down Saturday from previous weekends, and most of their actions were peaceful.
But violence again erupted in Paris, with protesters throwing projectiles and chasing police, who were firing tear gas and water cannons. A video of the gun-wielding policeman surrounded by protesters near the posh Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris circulated widely online.
He briefly pulled out the weapon after being pushed off his motorcycle and did not fire, but the threat of lethal action shocked many in France. He and other police then fled the scene.
Many protesters have denounced what they describe as disproportionate actions by police against the protesters, including multiple beatings also captured on video. Hundreds of people have been injured in the clashes, mainly protesters but also police officers and journalists. Police say they’re acting in self-defense.
The officer with the gun “did the right thing. It allowed a moment of pause, which allowed my colleagues to leave the scene safely,” said Rocco Contento of the French police union Unite FGP. “It’s a deterrent.”
Contento called the move exceptional, but said police are allowed to pull out their guns if they are physically threatened. And he said while the yellow vest protests seem to be abating, police are seeing a “growing intensity of violence against security forces.” He called for tough sentences against those who intentionally target police.
Sixty people were in custody Sunday after Saturday’s violence in the capital, including four minors, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Elsewhere, protesters attacked French prefectures and city halls from Nantes in the west to Carcassonne in the south.
Still the arrests and the damages were smaller than in previous weeks, and tourists and residents were able to walk around Paris more freely.
Stretched by the protests and extremism threats, French police threatened to hold their own protests to demand back overtime pay and better working conditions, and won preliminary concessions from the government last week.
“Police officers, too, are confronted by this crisis” the yellow vest movement is protesting, from high taxes to wage stagnation, Contento told The Associated Press.
With extra police on guard to protect French monuments and Christmas markets during the holiday season, he noted “it’s not really a festive atmosphere.”
The interior minister praised the “professionalism and composure” of security forces and called for a national debate to addresses the protesters’ economic concerns.
Macron has already bowed to several of the yellow vest movement’s demands to reduce taxes but many protesters want him to go farther.
French police defend pulling out gun against protesters
French police defend pulling out gun against protesters
- Sixty people were in custody Sunday after Saturday’s violence in the capital, including four minors, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office
US immigration agent fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis, mayor disputes government claim of self-defense
- A visibly angry mayor said federal immigration agents were responsible for sowing chaos in the city
MINNEAPOLIS: A US immigration agent shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in her car in Minneapolis on Wednesday amid an immigration enforcement surge, according to local and federal officials, the latest violent incident during President Donald Trump’s nationwide crackdown on migrants.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey adamantly rejected the Trump administration’s claim that the agent fired in self-defense, saying he has seen video of the shooting that directly contradicts what he called the government’s “garbage narrative.”
“They’re already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” he said at a press conference. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly — that is bullshit.”
A visibly angry Frey said federal immigration agents were responsible for sowing chaos in the city, telling ICE: “Get the f*** out of Minneapolis.” But he also urged residents to remain calm.
The shooting drew protesters into the streets near the scene, some of whom were met by heavily armed federal agents wearing gas masks who fired chemical irritants at the demonstrators.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer began firing after a “violent rioter” attempted to run over ICE officers.
“The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased,” she wrote. “The ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”
Frey said the woman did not appear to be trying to ram anyone in the video he had reviewed. The city police chief, Brian O’Hara, told reporters that the preliminary investigation indicated the woman’s vehicle was blocking traffic when a federal officer approached on foot.
“The vehicle began to drive off,” he said. “At least two shots were fired. The vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
Trump, a Republican, has deployed federal immigration agents to Democratic-led cities across the US through his first year in office in a crackdown against illegal immigration, leading to backlash from some residents.
The administration planned to send approximately 2,000 agents to Minneapolis, according to news reports, following allegations of wide-scale welfare fraud involving Somali immigrants, whom Trump has called “garbage.”
The identity of the shot woman was not publicly disclosed. US Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said on X that she was a US citizen. The police chief said the woman, who was married, was not a target of immigration operations.
WITNESSES DESCRIBE SHOOTING
A dark-colored SUV with a bullet hole through its windshield and blood splattered across the headrest was seen rammed into a pole on the snowy street where the shooting took place.
Venus de Mars, a 65-year-old Minneapolis resident who lives near the site of the shooting, described seeing paramedics perform CPR on a woman collapsed next to a snowbank near the crashed car. Shortly after, they loaded her into an ambulance that drove away without its sirens on.
“There’s been lots of ICE activity but nothing like this,” de Mars said. “I’m so angry. I’m so angry, and I feel helpless.”
The deployment of agents to Minneapolis follows Trump’s recent attacks on Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and the state’s large population of Somali Americans and Somali immigrants over allegations of fraud dating back to 2020 by some nonprofit groups that administer childcare and other social services programs.
At least 56 people have pleaded guilty since federal prosecutors started to bring charges in 2022 under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024, announced this week he would not seek a third term as governor, saying he did not have time both to address the fraud scandal and to campaign.
Immigration agents have been involved in other similar shootings during the Trump administration’s crackdown.
During “Operation Midway Blitz,” Trump’s immigration enforcement surge in Chicago last fall, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican national in a Chicago suburb. Gonzalez, a cook and father of two with no criminal record, was shot in his car after agents attempted to arrest him.
A DHS statement said Gonzalez had steered his car at agents, dragging one officer and causing him to fire out of fear for his life. Police bodycam footage obtained by Reuters complicated that narrative, with the ICE agent saying his injuries were “nothing major.”
Border Patrol agents also shot a woman in Chicago in October. DHS said the shooting was in self-defense after the woman, Marimar Martinez, rammed into the agents’ vehicle. But her lawyer said video footage showed the agents hit her car before opening fire.
In December, ICE agents fired at a van carrying two men they were targeting for arrest, leaving one with bullet wounds. A DHS statement said the men drove the van at ICE officers, prompting them to fire in self-defense.
