PARIS (AP) — Paris police say that at least 65 people including 11 police officers have been injured in violent protests in the French capital. Police also say that 140 people have been arrested.

Some protesters in France have set cars and trash cans on fire in central Paris after police pushed them away from the Arc de Triomphe monument following violent clashes.

Sporadic scuffles with police were breaking out Saturday afternoon in Paris city center as some protesters tried to build makeshift barricades using plywood planks and other material.

Meanwhile, other protesters, called “yellow jackets” because of the fluorescent vests they wear, were marching peacefully elsewhere in Paris. </s> Clashes have erupted in central Paris between police and demonstrators during May Day protests in the French capital. Protesters pelted Molotov cocktails as police responded with tear gas. Several of the officers caught fire and could be seen engulfed in flames.At least four police officers have been injured in the clashes, AFP reported. At least one officer suffered serious burns.Molotov cocktails have been thrown, police said on Twitter.Tear gas has been deployed by law enforcement to keep the increasingly angry crowd at bay.Fires could be seen burning alongside the road.There has been no information so far on any arrests made.Glass bottles and what may have been gas canisters were thrown at the police, according to RT's reporter from the scene.Police have been blocking routes so the crowds can't move away from a main road.The clashes look set to continue, RT's reporter said, adding that riot police have been prepared to separate two protests, and not let the crowds meet up.On Monday, Parisians gathered in central Paris for a peaceful May Day rally.Demonstrators from French Unions also took to the streets to protest the results of the first round of the French presidential elections, which saw independent candidate Emmanuel Macron being pitted against the right-wing Marine Le Pen in the second round due on May 7. </s> PARIS (Reuters) - More than 200 people have been arrested after a day of clashes between protesters and police in central Paris, local authorities said.

The Paris police department said 205 people had been arrested including militants from the far-right and far-left. </s> French police have arrested more than 200 people and used water cannon and teargas against masked protesters who smashed shop windows and hurled petrol bombs after a planned peaceful May Day rally by labour unions. 



The clashes came against a backdrop of union discontent with President Emmanuel Macron over his plans to stimulate France’s economy and spur jobs growth by loosening labour regulations. 



Riot police in Paris had warned on Monday of possible clashes with far-left anarchist groups, known as Black Blocs, after a call on social media to make Tuesday a “Revolutionary Day”. 



Authorities said around 1,200 masked and hooded protesters dressed in black turned up on the sidelines of the annual May Day demonstration by labour unions. 



More than 200 anarchists were arrested and four people, including a police officer, were lightly wounded in the ensuing disturbances, Paris police chief Michel Delpuech told a news conference. 



Protesters smashed windows of businesses, including a Renault garage and McDonald’s restaurant near the Austerlitz train station in eastern Paris. They also ransacked shops, torched cars and scrawled anti-capitalist graffiti on walls before eventually being dispersed by police. 



Gérard Collomb, the interior minister, condemned the violence and said everything was being done to apprehend the culprits. 



Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux criticised the protesters for covering their faces. “When you have sincere convictions, you demonstrate with your face unmasked,” he said. “Those who wear hoods are the enemies of democracy.” 



The protesters chanted anti-fascist slogans, waved old Soviet flags and anti-government banners and threw firecrackers. Some started to erect barricades. 



David Le Bars, a police union official, told BFM TV that security services had opted to let the protesters smash things rather than engage them to avoid casualties on either side that could exacerbate tensions. 



“They came to hit capitalist symbols and burn cops. When you come with Molotov cocktails, it’s to burn cops,” he said, pointing to clashes on 1 May last year that saw one police officer seriously burnt.

Under a union campaign to foil Macron’s economic reforms, railway staff have begun three months of nationwide rolling strikes against a planned overhaul of state-run railway SNCF. 



Discontent over Macron’s policies has spread beyond the railways and the May Day protests were intended to send a message of defiance to the former investment banker, who is currently on a trip to Australia. 



Earlier on Tuesday, Macron reiterated that he would not back down on his reform agenda. 



Unions put the number of peaceful protesters at the main rally in Paris at about 55,000, though police put it at around 20,000. The numbers were relatively small compared with other recent demonstrations. 



Police said the Black Blocs had mixed into a second rally of 14,500 people set up alongside the official union movement. 



Opposition conservative and far-right politicians accused Macron’s government of being insufficiently prepared for the violent protests and criticised it for not cracking down more heavily on anarchists. 



Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, said he believed far-right groups were responsible for the violence. </s> Six riot police officers have been injured during clashes with protesters armed with molotov cocktails in Paris on Monday. A group of around 150 people are said to have hijacked the city’s traditional May Day marches, organised every year by France’s unions
• May Day in France: six police injured as violent group hijacks Paris march </s> PARIS (Reuters) - French riot police used water cannon and teargas on Tuesday against hundreds of hooded protesters after they smashed shop windows and hurled petrol bombs at the start of an annual May Day rally in Paris.

Police had warned on Monday of possible clashes with far-left anarchist groups, known as Black Blocs, after a call on social media to make Tuesday a “Revolutionary Day”.

Authorities said some 1,200 hooded and masked protesters dressed in black had turned up on the sidelines of the annual planned demonstration by labor unions.

The protesters smashed the windows of several businesses, including a Renault garage and a McDonalds restaurant on a road near the Austerlitz station in eastern Paris and they set fire to a construction vehicle.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb condemned the violence and said everything was being done to arrest the culprits.

The protesters chanted anti-fascist slogans, waved Soviet flags and anti-government banners and threw firecrackers. Some started to erect barricades.

President Emmanuel Macron, elected last May on a promise to shake up France’s economy and spur jobs growth, is locked in a battle with the trade unions over his plans to liberalize labor regulations.

Railway staff have begun three months of nationwide rolling strikes in a dispute over the government’s planned overhaul of state-run railway SNCF. </s> Police fired tear gas and water cannons at demonstrators in Paris as thousands took to the streets across France to protest over rising fuel taxes and Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

Tensions have been mounting around the grassroots movement which drew more than a quarter of a million people a week ago to demonstrations from Provence to Normandy and in between. Demonstrators, dubbed ‘yellow jackets’ face riot police during clashes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, as they protest against fuel tax hikes (Kamil Zihnioglu/AP)

A new wave of protests was launched on Saturday, including beneath the Eiffel Tower.

On the nearby Champs-Elysees, police used water cannons and tear gas to try disperse protesters. Protesters flee as police fire tear gas during clashes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris( Kamil Zihnioglu/AP)

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner had earlier called for calm and threatened tough police measures against unruly crowds.

Paris alone deployed some 3,000 security forces, notably around tourist-frequented areas like the Champs-Elysees, after an unauthorised attempt last week to march on the presidential palace.

Two people have been killed and hundreds of others injured in the week of protests, which are posing a big challenge to Mr Macron.



Authorities are struggling because the movement has no clear leader and has attracted a motley group of people with broadly varying demands.

The protesters call themselves the “yellow jackets” after the hi-vis security vests that drivers are required to keep in their vehicles.

A man caused a dramatic stand-off with police on Friday when he donned a neon vest and brandished an apparent grenade at a supermarket in the western city of Angers. He was later arrested. Fuel tax protesters also took to the streets in Lyon (Laurent Cipriani/AP)

Most of the protesters’ anger is targeted at Mr Macron, a pro-business centrist accused of indifference to the struggles of ordinary people.

The president has defended the fuel taxes as necessary to reduce France’s dependence on fossil fuels, but promised to lay out new plans on Tuesday to make the “energy transition” easier. </s> PARIS: French police drew heavy criticism on Monday after officers were filmed spraying peaceful climate activists in the face with teargas during a Paris sit-in last week.



Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has ordered an investigation into the incident which took place on Friday during a protest by the "Extinction Rebellion" group over the government´s environment policies.

A video shared on Twitter and since widely broadcast on news channels shows at least two officers spraying protesters with teargas at close range, while the demonstrators try to shield their faces, boo the police and shout "non-violent!"

The officers are then seen dragging the protesters away one by one.

On Monday, the Paris prosecutor launched a preliminary probe that was to be handled by the police department´s internal investigation unit, the IGPN.

A demonstrator who gave her name as Flora told AFP the police used teargas after some protesters who had earlier been forcibly removed from the sit-in returned to the scene.

"They opted for a strategy of gassing people 20 centimetres (eight inches) from their faces," she said.

The Paris police department said officers had intervened to stop the protesters blocking traffic and that the demonstrators had been ordered "several times" to disperse. It said two people were arrested.

Images of the standoff caused an outcry both at home and abroad, with Sweden´s teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeting a link to the video with the words: "Watch this video and ask yourself; who is defending who?"

Launched in Britain, Extinction Rebellion organises acts of civil disobedience to draw attention to climate warming. Last month the group took part in the blockade of an open-pit coal mine in Germany.

Several French politicians condemned the treatment of the protesters in Paris.

"It´s outrageous to have young people who are fighting for our climate, who are fighting for our future... and the government´s only reaction is to not act and to teargas them," Yannick Jadot, a Greens member of the European Parliament, told BFM news channel.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure said "that would not happen in a dictatorship and it´s happening in France."

But Environment Minister Francois de Rugy, himself a former environmental activist, described the protesters as "very radical" and justified the use of the teargas "to get people to leave" the area.

There was also disquiet among some members of President Emmanuel Macron´s centrist Republic on the Move party with MP Barbara Pompili telling France 2 television she was "like everyone, quite shocked at teargas being sprayed very close to people´s eyes".

Over the past year, Macron has come under growing criticism over what activists see as his failure to keep a 2017 promise to "make our planet great again".



The French police have also been heavily criticised for their tactics during six months of weekly protests by anti-government "yellow vest" demonstrators.

Officers have been unable to stop crowds ransacking buildings and businesses while themselves drawing blame for a spate of serious injuries caused by their use of rubber bullets and stun grenades.

French law enforcement is also under investigation over the disappearance of a 24-year-old man in the western city of Nantes on June 21, World Music Day.

Steve Maia Canico went missing during a rave on an island in the Loire river that was broken up by the police with teargas following clashes with some of the revellers.

Several people who fell into the river during the melee were brought to safety but Maia Canico was never found. A march in his memory on Saturday in Nantes drew around 1,000 demonstrators.

In a further sign of how climate activists are increasingly turning to direct action, Greenpeace activists have been blocking the unloading of a Brazilian soy shipment in the southern French port of Sete.

On Monday, five of the activists -- who blame soybean production for deforestation -- were forcibly removed from the cranes to which they had chained themselves. </s> PARIS (AFP) - Two officers were hurt in clashes between riot police and masked youths during a May 1 march in Paris on Monday (May 1) that carried extra significance six days before the presidential election run-off.

"Masked individuals threw objects and Molotov cocktails at police" who responded by firing tear gas "and two riot police officers were injured", French authorities said.
Protesters clash with police in Paris.