Thousands of people turned out in major cities across France on Saturday to protest controversial new security legislation that would ban the publication of images of police officers with intent to cause them harm.
Activists and journalists are concerned the "global security law” will allow police violence to continue unchecked at a time of growing calls for more oversight. Anger has been heightened by videos that showed police using unwarranted force against a Black man and migrants on two separate occasions this past week.
Violence erupted at about 4 p.m. local time on Saturday on the fringes of a march near the Bastille square in Paris and some "construction site” material was set on fire, the city’s police said in a tweet. Protesters dressed in black — a regular fixture in France in recent years — overturned a van on a street leading to the square, while others used steel pedestrian barriers as shields against the police, AFP reported.