France Says 1,800 People Convicted Over Yellow Vest Protests

(Bloomberg) -- Almost three months of protests across France by the “Yellow Vests” have led to 1,800 criminal convictions, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday during a parliamentary debate. Another roughly 1,400 people are awaiting sentencing.

Philippe also condemned various anti-Semitic acts over the weekend, including the word “Juden,” meaning Jews in German, sprayed on a bagel shop in Paris and swastika graffiti on a memorial to Simone Veil, a former minister and death camp survivor.

“These acts are repugnant,” Philippe said. “They hit the Republic in sacred places.”

France has faced weekly and sometimes violent protests by the Yellow Vests, which began as a movement against gasoline taxes before morphing into general and eclectic opposition to government policies. While the anti-Semitic acts couldn’t be linked directly to Yellow Vests, the fringes of the leaderless movement have attracted all sorts of far-right, far-left, and nativist groups.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, James Regan, Phil Serafino

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