Macron to hold crisis meeting after anti-government riots
Paris, Dec 2 : French President Emmanuel Macron is to hold a crisis meeting on Sunday after anti-government protests in Paris that left 133 people injured and a trail of destruction around the capital.
Macron is set to fly into Paris late morning after attending a G20 summit in Argentina and will meet the prime minister, interior minister and top security service officials at the presidential palace.
New figures released from the Paris police service showed that 412 people were arrested on Saturday during the worst clashes for years in the capital and 378 were still in custody.
A total of 133 had been injured, including 23 members of the security forces who battled rioters for most of the day in some of the most famous parts of the capital.
"I will never accept violence," Macron told a news conference in Buenos Aires before flying home.
"No cause justifies that authorities are attacked, that businesses are plundered, that passers-by or journalists are threatened or that the Arc du Triomphe is defiled," he said.
In a fresh incident on Sunday morning, a motorway pay booth was set on fire by arsonists in southern France near the city of Narbonne, a judicial source told AFP.
The main north-south motorway in eastern France, the A6, was also blocked by protesters near the city of Lyon on Sunday morning, its operator said.
The capital was calm, however, but as groups of workers moved around cleaning up the mess from the previous day, the scale of the destruction became clear.
In famed areas around the Champs-Elysees, the Louvre palace, the Opera or Place Vendome, smashed shop windows, broken glass and the occasional burned out car were testament to the violence.
Dozens of cars were torched by the gangs of rioters, some of whom wore gas masks and ski goggles to lessen the effects of tear gas which was fired continually by police.
One person was in a critical condition after protesters pulled down one of the huge iron gates of the Tuileries garden facing the Louvre museum, crushing several people.
Nearly 190 fires were put out and six buildings were set alight, the interior ministry said.
At the Arc de Triomphe, a monument to France's war dead, graffiti had been daubed, saying: "The yellow vests will win." -- What response? -
This was a reference to the so-called "yellow vest" anti-government protests that have swept France over the last fortnight, sparked initially by a rise in taxes on diesel.
The movement has since morphed into a broad opposition front to Macron, a 40-year-old pro-business centrist elected in May 2017. Violent anarchist and far-right groups have since infiltrated it and are thought to be behind Saturday's clashes.
Macron faces a dilemma in how to respond to the "yellow vests", not least because they are a grassroots movement with no formal leaders and a wide range of demands.
Some representatives have also insisted on public talks broadcast on TV.
"We have said that we won't change course. Because the course is good," government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told BFM television defiantly on Sunday morning.
"It's been thirty years that people change course every 18 months," he added, referring to Macron's presidential predecessors who have often caved in to pressure from French street protests.
Macron has so far refused to roll back taxes on fuel, which he says are needed to fund the country's transition to a low-emission economy.
And he remains a fervent defender of the tax cuts he has delivered for businesses and high-earners, which he believes were necessary to lower the country's chronic high unemployment.
"We're at a time when a bit of national unity around our security forces, around those who are really struggling would be a good thing for the country," Griveaux added.
An estimated 75,000 demonstrators, most of them peaceful, were counted across the country on Saturday, the interior ministry said.
The number was well below the first day of protests on November 17, which attracted around 282,000 people, and also down from the 106,000 who turned out last Saturday.
Interior Minister Castaner attributed the violence to "specialists in sowing conflict, specialists in destruction".
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IPL 2026 auction to feature 350 players including 240 Indians; Quinton de Kock late addition
Mumbai (PTI): A total of 350 cricketers, including 240 Indians, will go under the hammer in the IPL auction to take place in Abu Dhabi on December 16, with South Africa's comeback man Quinton de Kock a surprise late addition to the final list.
Wicketkeeper-batter De Kock, who recently came out of his ODI retirement, has been kept at a base price of Rs 1 crore. The list also includes Australia batter Steve Smith at a base price of Rs 2 crore. Smith last played in the IPL in 2021.
A total of 1,390 players registered for the Player Auction. The number was pruned to 1,005 players before 350 were finally shortlisted to battle for 77 slots available including 31 for overseas players, across the 10 teams for the 19th edition of the world’s biggest T20 league.
The first set of players in the auction includes India and Mumbai batters Prithvi Shaw and Sarfaraz Khan, who both have kept their base price at Rs 75 lakh each. Shaw had a regular run in the IPL from 2018 to 2024 but had gone unsold in the auction for the last edition, whereas Sarfaraz has not played in the competition since 2021.
The list shared by the IPL features two Australians in Cameron Green and Jake Fraser-McGurk, along with New Zealand and former Chennai Super Kings opener Devon Conway and South Africa’s David Miller, with each of them keeping a base price of Rs 2 crore.
Venkatesh Iyer, who was released by Kolkata Knight Riders, has listed himself at a base price of Rs 2 crore. Among domestic players, Kunal Chandela and Ashok Kumar, who are among the leading run-getters and wicket-takers respectively in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, are also in the final list.
Three-time winners KKR will go into the auction with the biggest purse of Rs 64.3 crores, followed by five-time champions CSK with Rs 43.4 crores. Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have won the IPL once, have the third highest purse of Rs 25.5 crores.
As many as 21 England players feature in the list, including wicketkeeper-batter Jamie Smith, pacer Gus Atkinson, Liam Livingstone and Test opener Ben Duckett.
Green, expected to garner a lot of attention in this auction, leads the list of 19 Australians, with Josh Inglis, Matthew Short, Cooper Connolly and Beau Webster being the other prominent names.
De Kock and Miller are among the 15 Proteas players in the IPL auction, along with fast bowlers Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Gerald Coetzee and all-rounder Wiaan Mulder.
Fast bowlers Alzarri Joseph and Shamar Joseph, Ackeem Auguste, Shai Hope and Roston Chase are among the nine players from the West Indies in the auction.
Sri Lankan spinners Wanindu Hasaranga, Dunith Wellalage, Maheesh Theekshana and Traveen Matthew will be among the dozen players from the island nation in the auction, along with Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis and Kusal Perera.
Conway and Rachin Ravindra, who were released by CSK, are among the 16 New Zealand players in the auction.
Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Naveen ul Haq feature in the list of 10 players from Afghanistan.
