PARIS -- Violence broke out Saturday in Paris during the 18th weekend of yellow-vest demonstrations, with protesters targeting symbols of economic privilege, setting multiple fires and smashing a high-end restaurant on the Champs-Elysees, even as the crowd's numbers dwindled from past rallies.
Organizers for Saturday's protests said on social media that they wanted the day to serve as an "ultimatum" to "the government and the powerful."
The size of the movement, which started in November over a proposed gas-tax increase and came to embody general discontent against President Emmanuel Macron's policies, has been shrinking from weekend to weekend. But protesters have maintained a continuing presence every Saturday.
The resurgent violence comes at the end of a two-month-long national debate called by Macron that protesters say failed to answer their demands for economic justice.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who inspected the damage Saturday evening on the Champs-Elysees, said an estimated 10,000 yellow-vest protesters were in Paris and that another 4,500 had demonstrated elsewhere in France. He said at least 1,500 casseurs, or "breakers," were among them. In the earliest demonstrations, late last year, more than a quarter-million people took to the streets across France.
Some turned out Saturday to "break, fight to the finish and attack," Castaner said, adding that others had tried to assault the Arc de Triomphe monument twice, reminiscent of the scenes of chaos in the early stages of the movement. In January, protesters attacked a government building with a construction vehicle and forced a minister to be evacuated.
Paris police said 192 people were arrested Saturday and 60 others were injured, 18 of them police and firefighters.
One arson fire targeted a bank near the Champs-Elysees on the ground floor of a seven-story residential building. A mother and her child had to be rescued as the fire threatened to engulf their floor, Paris' fire service said. Eleven people in the building, including two firefighters, suffered injuries.
A 43-year-old German factory worker who identified himself only as Peter had traveled to Paris to show solidarity with the yellow-vest protesters. Standing Saturday outside the burned-out bank, he said he agreed with the destruction, calling banks "the biggest problem in the world."
Protest organizers had hoped to make a splash Saturday, marking the four-month anniversary of the yellow-vest movement, which started Nov. 17, and the end of the "great debate" that the French president organized to respond to protesters' concerns about sinking living standards, stagnant wages and high unemployment.
They claimed Macron had failed in that aim.
"It was hot air. It was useless, and it didn't achieve anything. We're here to show Macron that empty words are not enough," said yellow-vest demonstrator Frank Leblanc, 62, of Nantes.
"We're marking the end of the great debate. ... Macron has given us no great solutions," said protester Francine Sevigny of Lyon.
Others praised the violence that tore through Paris.
"I'm glad there are the thugs because without them, our movement wouldn't get any attention. We need the violence so we can be heard," said Marie, a mother of two from Seine-et-Marne who wouldn't give her surname.
The violence started minutes after the protesters gathered Saturday, when they threw smoke bombs and other objects at officers along the Champs-Elysees -- the scene of past rioting -- and started pounding on the windows of a police van.
Fires were put out at two newspaper kiosks, which sent black smoke high into the sky. Several protesters posed for a photo in front of one charred kiosk.
Looters smashed the front of Fouquet's, a restaurant that came to epitomize economic privilege after Nicolas Sarkozy hosted a party there on the night of his presidential election victory in 2007.
Footage shared online Saturday showed flames licking at tables and tablecloths.
Demonstrators also targeted symbols of the luxury industry, smashing and pillaging shops including those of the brands Hugo Boss and Lacoste, and tossing mannequins out of broken windows.
French riot police tried to contain the demonstrators Saturday with repeated volleys of tear gas and water cannons, with limited success.
France's police forces have come under heightened scrutiny after dozens of yellow-vest protesters were injured by "dispersal grenades" and rubber pellets.
Last week, senators adopted contentious legislation aimed at cracking down on protesters by allowing administrative rather than judiciary authorities to issue a ban on protests.
Yellow-vest protesters, who take their name from the fluorescent road-safety garment that French drivers must carry in their vehicles, have tried to breathe new life into a movement that has struggled to unite over all the grievances aimed at Macron and the elite.
Eric Drouet, a key figure in the movement, said Saturday's march would be his last. "We've proved that marching wasn't functioning," he said in a video posted online, adding that he would continue the fight in other ways.
More than 220 other marches were planned throughout France on Saturday, including a march for "social and climate justice" in Paris.
Castaner said the number of yellow-vest protesters in Paris paled beside the 30,000 people who took part in the peaceful climate march in the city.
Information for this article was contributed by Elian Peltier of The New York Times; and by Thomas Adamson, Angela Charlton, Chris den Hond, Milos Krivokapic, Catherine Gaschka and Elaine Ganley of The Associated Press.
A Section on 03/17/2019