With less than two weeks before Christmas, shoppers in Paris continued to hit the city’s department stores on Saturday despite the “yellow vest” protests that have rocked the capital in recent weeks.
Demonstrators gathered in the French capital on Saturday for the fifth consecutive weekend of the nationwide anti-government movement, clashing with police, notably on the Champs Elysees where many stores were boarded up.
But contrary to last weekend, many stores elsewhere in the city were open in expectation of a lower turnout from protesters after a raft of new measures announced on Monday by President Emmanuel Macron to calm tensions.
A police source told Reuters some 33,500 protesters had been counted in France by 1300 GMT compared to 77,000 at the same time on Dec. 8.
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