PARIS: Paris police fired teargas and issued hundreds of fines on Saturday to break up a convoy of vehicles that attempted to block traffic in a protest over Covid restrictions and rising living costs.

Inspired by the truckers that shut down the Canadian capital Ottawa, thousands of demonstrators from across France made their way to Paris in a self-proclaimed “freedom convoy” of cars, trucks and vans.

The police, which had banned the protest, moved quickly to try to clear the cars at entry points to the city, handing out 283 fines for participation in an unauthorised protest.

But over 100 vehicles managed to converge on the famous Champs-Elysees avenue, where police used teargas to disperse protesters in scenes reminiscent of the “yellow vest” anti-government riots of 2018-2019.

Canada border blockade clearing peacefully as police move in

The demonstrators oppose the Covid vaccine pass required to access many public venues but some also took aim at rising energy and food prices, issues which ignited the “yellow vest” protests that shook France in late 2018 and early 2019.

Aurelie M., a 42-year-old administrative assistant in a Parisian company, complained that the health pass meant she could no longer take a long-distance TGV train even if she tested negative for Covid in a home test.

“There’s so much inconsistency and unfairness,” she said, noting that commuters could still cram onto a crowded Paris metro without proof of vaccination.

Sixty-five-year-old factory worker Jean-Paul Lavigne said he travelled across the country from the southwestern town of Albi to protest fuel, food and electricity price hikes as well as the pressure on people to get vaccinated. The demonstrations come two months ahead of presidential elections, in which President Emmanuel Macron is expected to seek re-election.

On Friday, the centrist French leader, who is a figure of hate for the far left, said he understood the “fatigue” linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many demonstrators drove away from the Ambassador Bridge spanning the river between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, as scores of police approached shortly after dawn. They had spent the night there in defiance of new warnings to end the blockade, which disrupted the flow of traffic and goods and forced the auto industry on both sides to roll back production.

Surrounded by dozens of officers, a man with Mandate Freedom and Trump 2024 spray-painted on his vehicle left as other protesters began dismantling a small tarp-covered encampment. A trucker honked his horn as he, too, drove off, to cheers and chants of Freedom! The demonstrations at the Ambassador Bridge, downtown Ottawa and elsewhere have targeted vaccine mandates and other coronavirus restrictions and vented fury toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has called the protesters a fringe of Canadian society.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2022