Nearly 1,000 still in custody over Paris unrest

Paris’s chief prosecutor says that nearly 1,000 people, nearly 100 of them minors and most without police records, are being held in custody after weekend protests in the French capital that turned violent.

Remy Heitz also says at a news conference that the prosecutor’s office was seeking preliminary charges against the person believed to be primarily responsible for graffiti scrawled on the Arc de Triomphe last weekend. Thirteen others were already handed preliminary charges over vandalism of the monument.

Heitz says that most of those in custody were men under 40 from various regions who came to Paris for the fourth Saturday of protests by a ballooning grassroots movement angry about a fuel tax hike and other issues.

— AP