The injury to one of the yellow vest leaders could see protests lurch towards calamity and tragedy.
The latest violence at the “yellow vest” demo in Paris where one of the leaders of the Gilets Jaunes was gravely wounded must act as a warning to both protesters, police and politicians, writes John Lichfield. Otherwise the conflict is heading into tragic and calamitous new territory.
The Gilets Jaunes street protests are already the longest running and most violent in recent French history.
The events in Paris on Saturday, when a yellow vest leader, Jérôme Rodrigues, was gravely wounded in his right eye, are a stark warning to both sides.
The longer the confrontations go on, the more likely it becomes that there will be a grave incident or a series of incidents, which take the conflict into calamitous and tragic new territory.
The warning looks likely to be ignored – by both sides.
Gilets Jaunes leaders (who claim not be leaders but act more and more like leaders) are exploiting the incident to try to galvanize their flagging and splintering movement.
Eric Drouet, the 33 years old truck driver who is now the de facto leading yellow vest, called on Saturday night for a retaliatory “rising without precedent by all useful and necessary means”. He then denied, hypocritically, that this was a call for violent rebellion.
The government, although clearly worried by the incident, is refusing to bow to calls for the withdrawal of rubber-bullets and stun grenades used by almost no other security forces in the European Union.
The injury to Mr Rodrigues (see photo below), who was filming the violence at Place de la Bastille but not behaving violently, was initially thought to have been caused by a splinter from a stun grenade or “grenade de désencerclement”. Although Mr Rodrigues claims he was also hit by flashball – a controversial rubber bullet fired by police.