The State will have to pay 1.4 million euros to the City of Paris. The damage having been committed during demonstrations on the public highway, the court considers that the municipality can request “State responsibility“.
The State was ordered to pay a little more than 1.4 million euros to the City of Paris to compensate it for the damage caused during the demonstrations of the “yellow vests“, announced the town hall of the capital on Friday. The two convictions were handed down by the Administrative Court of Paris and relate to “the period from November 2018 to December 2019“, explained the town hall in a press release. During this period of just over a year, Paris had been the scene of the biggest demonstrations of the social movement, regularly punctuated by violence, clashes with the police and damage. During the first weekends of mobilization, the Arc de Triomphe had been vandalized in particular and “yellow vests“had forced the entry of the ministry of the former government spokesperson, Benjamin Griveaux. In March 2019, the famous Fouquet’s brasserie was burned down at the top of the Champs-Élysées.
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In one of the decisions handed down on Wednesday and consulted by AFP, the court considered that “the damage was indeed committed during demonstrations on the public highway“. “If the presence of black blocks is sometimes mentioned in the reports, the findings also mention degradations committed by demonstrators“, observed the court. “Such damage is therefore the result of a crowd (…) and not of an organized group formed for the sole purpose of committing crimes“, also indicated the court. Since then, “the City of Paris is justified in requesting the State’s commitment to liability.” At the end of April, the administrative justice had already condemned the State to pay a little more than 1.2 million euros to the municipality and the metropolis of Toulouse, in compensation for the damage caused by the movement of “yellow vests“.