Paris Busts 100 as Banned Protests Turn Violent

The Paris police chief says that about 100 people have been detained after a protest seeking a global climate deal turned violent. Michel Cadot told reporters that police identified about 200 or 300 people who violated a ban on all protests under the country's state of emergency. The state of emergency was declared because of the recent extremist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris. Cadot said Sunday about 100 people who were found to have projectiles or other suspicious objects were detained. Police fired numerous rounds of tear gas on protesters to disperse them in an early test of the authorities' determination to ban public demonstrations during the international climate negotiations. Protesters had earlier lined the streets of Paris with thousands of pairs of shoes.

Protests flared elsewhere, including thousands of people who marched through London, urging world leaders not to blow their chance to take strong action on climate change. Actress Emma Thompson, designer Vivienne Westwood, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn are among demonstrators urging politicians to strike a binding agreement at climate talks in Paris. Corbyn told the crowd that the talks were "an enormous opportunity" to tackle "pollution, climate change, inequality, environmental refugees, war refugees and resources wars. If we are to make a real difference in Paris, all these issues have got to be thought about and addressed." Thompson said that climate change, once seen as a fringe cause, was now "the issue of the 21st century." Events are taking place around the world on the eve of the Paris talks. (More climate change stories.)