1 dead, scores injured in France ‘fuel tax’ protests

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PARIS, Nov 18, (Agencies): One protester was killed and 227 other people were injured – eight seriously – at roadblocks set up around villages, towns and cities across France on Saturday as citizens angry with rising fuel taxes rose up in a grassroots movement, posing a new challenge to beleaguered President Emmanuel Macron.

Police officers lobbed tear gas canisters at demonstrators on the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris as groups of “yellow jackets,” as the protesters called themselves, tried to make their way to the presidential Elysee Palace. Later, hundreds of protesters entered the bottom of the street dotted with luxury shops where the palace is located – and where Macron lives – before being pushed back by security forces with shields.

In a similar scenario, police cleared out the huge traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe, paralyzed for hours by protesters. French Interior Ministry officials counted nearly 283,000 protesters, mostly peaceful, throughout the day at more than 2,000 sites, some setting bonfires or flying balloons.

However, some demonstrations turned violent. In Troyes, southeast of Paris, about 100 people invaded the prefecture, the local representation of the state, damaging the inside, Interior Ministry officials said. In Quimper, in Brittany, security forces used water cannon to disperse hostile protesters. The protester who died, a 63-year-old woman, was killed when a driver caught in the blockade accelerated in a panic at Pont-de-Beauvoisin, near Chambery, in eastern France, according to Louis Laugier, the prefect, or top state official, in the Savoie region.

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