PARIS – Thousands of people around France protested a proposed bill that could make it more difficult for witnesses to film police officers, with tensions quickly rising at the Paris march Saturday as intruders set fire to several cars, broke windows and tossed objects at police.
The protest-crashers, who disrupted a similar demonstration a week ago, formed a barricade on a section of the march route in eastern Paris.
Dressed in black and known as "black blocs," the aggressive interlopers are a feared element at French demonstrations. Police officers who have come under fire for alleged racism and gratuitous violence within their ranks, were hard-pressed to stop the individuals seeding chaos at the march attended by several thousand people..