France Bans Yellow Vest Rallies on Champs-Elysees For 2nd Week in Row

23:14 GMT, 27 March 2019

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Wednesday that he had instructed the police to ban the yellow vest protests on the Champs-Elysees avenue, located in the heart of the French capital, for the second consecutive weekend.

Sputnik

"The request for a demonstration on the Champs-Elysees next Saturday [March 30] is an incitement to further violence. I gave the [Paris] police chief very specific instructions to ban [the rally]", Castaner wrote on Twitter.

The decision to banish yellow vests from the Champs-Elysees came after the violent rallies, which resulted in dozens of injuries, plunged the French capital into chaos. The French government has replaced the head of Paris police in connection with the events.

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The wave of the yellow vest rallies started in France in mid-November over planned hikes in fuel taxes. While the French government abandoned its plans to raise fuel taxes and introduced other measures to improve the country's socioeconomic situation, protesters continue to take to the streets across France every weekend for demonstrators to express their discontent with government's policies.

According to the French Interior Ministry, almost 4,000 people had been injured in protests since the beginning of the movement.

Last Saturday the yellow vest protests were banned on Paris' main avenue. Demonstrators marched instead from Denfert Rochereau area in southern Paris to tourist hotspot Montmartre.