French police on Saturday used tear gas and a water jet to disperse a demonstration of Palestinian support in violation of a court-approved ban by the authorities.
Thousands of people gathered in the Barbes area of Paris, home to a large number of immigrants, who ignored police warnings that the demonstration was illegal.
Police blocked the streets of the district, while some of the demonstrators began to stone the law enforcement officers, while others resorted to building barricades using scaffolding.
The police mainly tried to prevent them from following the route planned by the organizers of the demonstration to Place de la Bastille.
French police reportedly banned a demonstration in support of the Palestinians on Thursday, fearing that it, like a similar demonstration in 2014, would escalate into violence.
On Friday, the police ban was also confirmed by a court.
The demonstration coincides with the so-called Palestinian Day of Disaster (Nakba), which commemorates the abandonment of what is now Israel, with hundreds of thousands of Arabs leaving after the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.
Among the 30 organizations hosting Saturday’s protest are the ldle-de-France Palestinian Association, as well as so-called anti-fascists and the newly formed Anti-Capitalist Party.
On Thursday, the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanen also instructed the police chiefs of other cities to closely monitor the progress of the planned demonstrations and, if necessary, to ban them, as well as to strengthen the protection of objects related to the Jewish community.-
Demonstrations in support of the Palestinians have been banned in several suburbs of Paris, as well as in Nice, where, ignoring, some 150 people had gathered.
“We do not want scenes of violence, we do not want the conflict to be imported into French territory, we do not want an outbreak of hatred on our streets,” a government spokesman said in Marseille on Saturday.
Meanwhile, several thousand people have crossed the streets of several other cities in northern France, including Montpellier, Toulouse and Bordeaux, but no reports have yet been received of any incidents.
Prohibitions on demonstrations have led to divisions among French politicians, largely in line with their party affiliation.
While the ruling central party “Forward, Republic!”, Founded by President Emanuel Macron, (LREM), as well as the opposition right, supports the ban, the left calling it an unacceptable restriction on freedom of expression.
However, the mayor of Paris, Anna Idalgo, who represents the opposition Socialists, has acknowledged that the government has made a “smart” decision.
In 2014, when there were protests against the then-ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, demonstrators attacked one of Paris’s synagogues and Jewish shops.
Similar demonstrations in Germany and Denmark have escalated this week.
Demonstrations in support of the Palestinians have also taken place in London and Madrid today.
Since Monday, Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip have reportedly fired massive Israeli rockets in response to Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire on objects linked to the radical Islamist group Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
To date, the Palestinians have fired more than 2,300 rockets at Israel, killing ten people, including a child and one soldier, and injuring more than 560 Israelis.
At least 139 people, including 39 children, have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and artillery shots in the Gaza Strip. About 950 people have been injured.
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