The France chooses exceptional measures to counteract the yellow vests a Paris. From the early hours of dawn, 8thousand police officers control the French capital, and the tactics of the gendarmerie were immediately that of lightening charges, tend to be small, ma immediate, in order to strike in the shortest possible time the gathering of forces and the construction of barricades that have appeared throughout the center of the metropolis.

The police lock down Paris

The fourth day of protests by the yellow vests sees a particularly important bulletin. The prefecture announced that a few minutes after noon, they were already there 548 fermi. On the Champs-Elysees avenue, around 10:25, the police fired the first tear gas canisters at demonstrators near the Arc de Triomphe. An hour later, further tear gas launches by police in riot gear. Police charges were also recorded on the Paris ring road, where some groups of yellow vests had begun to block the road arteries, as also happened at the same time in the Pyrenees, at the crossings to Spain.
The strategy of the French police was, at least until now, that of the preventive attack. The government has changed tactics after the terrible results of recent weeks. And that's how the gendarmerie began with hundreds of preventive arrests, Carpet controls for access to cities, lightening charges against the first unauthorized gatherings, water cannons used to disperse the crowd and to break down the first barricades.

And armored VBRG

And just in case, the French government also decided to use a dozen armored vehicles VBRG. This is an absolutely exceptional measure. At least one of them, as noted by Le Figaro, he was seen moving in Bastille Square early in the morning. The atriums are lined up on the Champs-Elysees avenue, theater of the most ferocious clashes of recent days of mobilization.
I “VBRG” (wheeled armored vehicles of the gendarmerie) they have been part of the arsenal of French law enforcement since 1975. Their purpose is to move for destroy the barricades and also resist gunshots. They are real breakthrough battering rams that also serve to transport small groups of policemen, launch of tear gas, bomb stordenti, and some versions, explain the French media, they are equipped with lame able to cut through obstacles and barriers in their path.
Their use in French territory was very rare. The last time, they were deployed in April for the clearance of the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, an area occupied by 10 years by hundreds of activists protesting against the proposed construction of an airport. The order to restore the territory for agricultural use triggered the forced eviction from the area: and that time, the gendarmerie used VBRGs. A few years earlier, In the 2005, the police had used them in the clashes in the suburbs of 2005. They had also been involved during the riots in the suburbs in 2005.
A rare use in metropolitan France, but not for missions outside the national territory. The armored vehicles of the French gendarmerie were in fact used in Kosovo, for joint missions, and in Ivory Coast, for the evacuation of some citizens. Completely different missions compared to what is happening in Paris, but it was also an extremely important signal of deterrence. The police were keen to clarify that the deployment in the capital would have been for defensive purposes only and with no attack orders. But it is clear that the image of these armored vehicles on the Parisian boulevards was intended to be a very clear message to the demonstrators. Guerrilla warfare would have (and it might have) very serious consequences.
Source: http://www.occhidellaguerra.it/parigi-gilet-gialli-vbrg/