Around three hundred vehicles taking part in a Canada-style protest convoy against Covid regulations arrived in Lille, northern France, en route to Brussels, where officials have already banned a demonstration called for Monday.

The flag-bearing trek north came after 97 people were arrested in Paris on Saturday as thousands of demonstrators defied a ban on trying to block traffic, with 81 still in custody early on Sunday.

The convoy, while smaller than the nearly 3,000 vehicles that converged on the capital from cities across France, stopped at the parking lot of a shopping mall outside Lille, just south of the Belgian border, AFP reports.