Armored vehicles and water cannons deployed; tear gas thrown, police arrests VIDEO

Armored vehicles and water cannons deployed; tear gas thrown, police arrests VIDEO

Protesters arrived in convoys from all over France, intending to enter the city in defiance of government bans determined to prevent any blockade of the capital.

Paris police have banned “freedom convoys” from entering the city this weekend as hundreds of vehicles set out from across France to block the capital.

Police stopped five hundred vehicles trying to enter Paris.

French police responded with tear gas to the "Freedom Convoy" in several squares in Paris.

Fourteen people were arrested, 337 reports were written by early afternoon and 500 vehicles were stopped during the morning trying to enter Paris, police said. The vehicles were intercepted at three entrances to the French capital, the police announced on Twitter.

However, a number of vehicles entered the city and then there were sporadic clashes with protesters at the Triumphal Arch. Police previously asked demonstrators to move after climbing vehicles in the middle of a circular flow around the triumphant gate and when they refused, tear gas was deployed.

Nearly 7.200 police officers and gendarmes have been deployed in the next three days to enforce the ban on the passage of convoys of vehicles, the Paris police announced.

Police prepared tear gas and water cannons

As French truckers start arriving in Paris, the government response was prepared. Macron appears to have forgotten the French motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Paris Police Prefect Didier Lalemann said that they have opened a temporary landfill for vehicles which will remove cars, will "break through every roadblock".

Police showed their anti-blockade arsenal on Twitter, posting photos of barricade removal machines, as well as vehicles equipped with cranes or water cannons. Gendarmerie armored vehicles have also been deployed on the streets of the capital for the first time since the Yellow Vests protest at the end of 2018.

Prime Minister Jean Castex has vowed to persevere in preventing the blockade of the city. "If they block traffic or try to block the capital, we have to be very firm about it," he insisted on France 2 television on Friday.

French media state that the opponents of the COVID measures gathered in the "Freedom Convoy" are the opponents of President Emmanuel Macron and the "yellow vests".

The convoy stopped at the entrance to the city

Inspired by Canadian truckers who are paralyzing border traffic with the United States, anti-vaxxers are among the protesters, but people are also angry about the rapid rise in energy prices.

Hundreds of cars, campers and vans from Lille, Strasbourg, Châteaubourg and other places stopped at the gates of Paris on Friday night, but according to a source from the police, no convoy entered the capital. It requires the abolition of COVID passes, which are needed to access many public spaces, and additional assistance to pay energy bills.

"People need to see us and hear people who just want to live a normal and free life," said Lisa, a 62-year-old retired health worker who joined a convoy of more than 1.000 vehicles from Châteaubourg early Friday morning.

Macron: "I understand people's fatigue due to the pandemic"

Like other protesters, Lisa was active in the Yellow Vests movement that erupted due to a fuel tax increase before turning into a protest movement against President Emmanuel Macron.

Just two months before the presidential election and with a government desperate to avoid scenes of violence in the capital, Macron said on Friday that he understood the "fatigue" associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This fatigue also leads to anger. I understand and respect it. But I call for maximum calm," he told the Ouest-France newspaper. Police estimated that there were 3.300 vehicles in various roads by Friday afternoon.

Paris police have banned rallies for "disturbing public order" and said protesters trying to block roads would be punished or arrested.

"The court has no right to block our protest"

The order banning gathering of the convoy was confirmed on Friday by the courts, which rejected two appeals.

"It is a betrayal. The decision does not respect the laws, the freedom of demonstration," anti-vaccine activist Sophie Tissier told AFP.

"The right to protest and opinion is a right guaranteed by the Constitution in our Republic and in our democracy. The right to block others or prevent the arrival and departure is not," said the Prime Minister.

"It is important that we do not disturb other people on the roads," said activist Robin on his way from Illkirch-Graffenstaden in the eastern region of Alsace.

“That way we will keep the population on our side, as they did in Canada".

Some then want to travel to Brussels for the "European gathering" of protesters scheduled for Monday.

Phil, a 58-year-old man who set off by truck from Brittany, said his refusal to get vaccinated had changed relationships in his family and business contacts.

"When you join the demonstrations, you feel less alone," he told AFP.

The government expressed sympathy with the protesters, and spokesman Gabriel Attal attributed their anger to fatigue after long-term measures of restraint in the fight against COVID.

On Friday, the government announced further easing of measures against COVID.