PARIS—Tens of thousands of people took to the streets here to decry police brutality and protest legislation that would restrict people from publishing identifiable images of French police officers.
Saturday’s protest, which took place as France began a gradual relaxation of a month-long lockdown, is shaping up as a test of civil liberties in an era of coronavirus-linked restrictions. Police had initially banned the protest because of limits on public gatherings, only to have their order struck down Friday by a Paris administrative court.
The protest began in relative calm along a roughly mile-long route, from Place de la Republique to Place de la Bastille. Some protesters held a black banner reading “Police Mutilate, Police Assassinate,” while others chanted “everyone detests the police” and called on President Emmanuel Macron to resign.
Later in the afternoon, some people in the protest threw objects toward police and set fires along the sidewalk of a large avenue, sending plumes of black smoke into the clear blue sky. Police dispersed crowds near Bastille with clouds of tear gas.
Some 46,000 people participated in the Paris protest, according to France’s Interior Ministry.