Protesters from the "Yellow Jackets" movement uprooted walls around the trees in the Champs-Elysees region of central Paris and cut and set fire to the trees during today's protests.French police removed seats from the streets to prevent the use of metal bars by protesters and strengthened their presence in Champs-Elysées.
Saturday's protests broke out between police and protesters.
For the first time in the history of the Yellow Jackets movement, French police deployed armored vehicles in Paris and used sound bombs, gas bombs and hot water hoses to disperse protesters.
Reuters
Police have arrested about 700 members of the "jackets" in the country on suspicion of processing violence.
Reuters
AFP
Turkish President R.Tayyip Erdoğan accused European countries of double standards on the back of the rise of the "yellow jackets" protests in France, saying they failed the democratic test.
"Now you can see the silence of those who tried to smear our streets with blood and burn them with fire," Anatolia news agency quoted Erdogan as saying, referring to the attempted coup in Turkey in 2016.
"Look at what the police of those who were making a mockery of our condition and accusing it of repressing" did so while suppressing the coup attempt.
Erdogan said the scene in France "reveals the failure of Europe in the examination of democracy and human rights and freedoms."
"Those who have raised the anti-refugees and Islamism for political populism have fallen into the hole they dug themselves," he said. "The walls of security and prosperity they have nurtured are beginning to be shaken by their own citizens, not by Muslims or immigrants."
Erdogan noted that Ankara is watching with concern what is happening in the streets of Europe, stressing Turkey's rejection of the chaos raised by the protesters and their refusal to use excessive force against them alike.
