Renewed clashes in Paris: "We've seen numerous CRS charges to disperse protesters"

We begin at Place de la République in Paris, where some protesters and police are seeing renewed clashes this Sunday afternoon. They were responding to widely circulating calls on social media to continue the protest movement. Police have once again deployed tear gas and have made several more arrests today. Well, let's get a picture then of what's happening there at Place de la République now. Our reporter Antonia Kerrigan is there for us. Antonia, tell us what's going on around you. Well, where I am right now, things are calm, but it's been a lot of peaks of intensity in the last couple of hours in two side streets just adjacent to Place de la République. In one side street, young people have built a barricade, piling up things like bikes, like Lime bikes, the rental bikes. And there is in a separate street, just an adjacent street, there is a quite significant fire. It's unclear at this stage exactly what is burning. It's not a building, but there's something that's been set on fire. We've seen numerous detonations of tear gas in the last hour. We've also seen numerous charges by CRS officers intending to disperse protesters. Of course, we also, in that, there inevitably, or perhaps inevitably, and that's of course debatable, but there's also a certain amount of collateral damage. We've seen them hitting inadvertently or intentionally. We don't know bystanders. Our Our guest, Adam Tierney, who was with us just an hour ago on air, he took a hit from CRS officers' baton just soon after he was on live with us on France 24. So the tensions are extremely high, and we understand that following everything, the way it degenerated last night, the police feel fairly justified in using quite a lot of force. That was another bang. I can't quite identify what it was at this stage. It looks like tear gas from where I'm standing, but it's not entirely clear. Perhaps not. It's blue. But that's, of course, dispersing protesters, and we can see CRS officers moving in once again. You'll see people moving past me here. But it's a little bit calmer than it was an hour ago, perhaps, although, as we say, peaks and troughs in intensity throughout the afternoon. This is, of course, not a planned protest. It's not a declared protest. There is no official plan for what protesters are supposed to do, how long they're supposed to stay here. There's no event. There are no speeches. So it is essentially an afternoon-long face-off between protesters and officers of the law. Antonia, give us an idea of also the extent of the damage you've been seeing today. Describe to us the scenes of the aftermath there at the moment. Well, there are several shops we've gone past that are completely emptied of their merchandise. Sorry, that's another. Something else has just blown up, but I don't know what it is. I don't think it's tear gas at this stage. Excuse me. The damage is consequential. There are shops that have been completely destroyed. So that was a slight burning of tear gas coming in again now. But the shops are completely destroyed. We've spoken to business owners as well as local residents. A couple we spoke to live on a first floor flat. And we spoke to a couple. And the wife, who is pregnant, saw the flames licking up from street level. all the way up to her first floor window. So an extremely frightening experience for many local residents. Another flat in the local area was affected by a fire that was set in the pharmacy downstairs. So the extent of the damage is enormous. We know 1,500 shops were affected nationwide by vandalism and looting. Of course, the bill is yet to come in for all that, and it's likely to be extremely consequential, likely in the tens or even hundreds of millions. Excuse me, the tear gas. The tear gas is reaching me. The square around me is looking pretty desolate. They successfully dispersed everyone who is in the centre of the square. Most of them seem to have sought refuge around the edges because, of course, when you're against a wall, you aren't going to be charged, I think, is the thinking we can anticipate anyway, that the events aren't quietening down today and aren't quietening down this afternoon yet at Place de la République. Antonio, thank you so much for that. we'll let you go and get away from that here, I guess. Antonio, thank you very much indeed for now.