French Banks Call on Yellow Vests to Spare Local Branches

(Bloomberg) -- French banks are urging Yellow Vests protesters to spare local branch offices as the nation braces for the 20th straight Saturday of street demonstrations.

“Hundreds of local agencies” were vandalized in the past four months and employees have been threatened, the heads of BNP Paribas SA, Credit Agricole SA, Groupe BPCE, Societe Generale, Credit Mutuel and Banque Postale wrote in a column published Saturday in Le Monde. “We demand that our colleagues and sellers be able to do their job in safe and serene conditions to the benefit of their customers.”

More than 760 banking offices have been damaged since protests began, Agence France Presse said. Paris authorities banned protests on the famous Champs Elysees and near the presidential palace and the national assembly, following pillages this month and a fire at a bank, but the prohibition hasn’t deterred protesters from rallying in other areas Saturday.

French banks have 366,200 employees in 37,000 offices, according to the column, which was also signed by the French Banking Federation.

The Yellow Vests have been protesting every Saturday since November, asking for economic equality, with demands ranging from lower taxes to better public services. While there were dramatic scenes late last year, recent protests until last weekend had been poorly attended. Most of Saturday’s vandalism was blamed on far-left “black bloc” activists who tag along just to wreak havoc.

An Ifop-Fiducial survey released two weeks ago found that 66 percent of French condemn the violence during Yellow Vest protests, up from 63 percent in January. The survey also found that 46 percent of those polled support or have sympathy for the Yellow Vest movement, down from 50 percent in Feb. 13-14.

--With assistance from Geraldine Amiel.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ania Nussbaum in Paris at anussbaum5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tara Patel at tpatel2@bloomberg.net, ;Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, V. Ramakrishnan

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