With French police suicides on the rise, Paris authorities are investigating yellow vest protesters who encouraged police to kill themselves, reports ABC News.
Radical protesters have clashed with police nearly every weekend for five months on the margins of largely peaceful yellow vest demonstrations demanding more help for Frances beleaguered workers, retirees and students.
On Saturday, Associated Press reporters heard some protesters in Paris shouting 'Kill yourselves!' at police firing tear gas and rubber projectiles and charging the crowd.
Police unions denounced the protesters call as an unacceptable insult to the officers who have killed themselves and their suffering families. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner called it a disgrace and pledged his support for police and their loved ones, who have been under extra strain as the yellow vest protests have sometimes turned quite violent.
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Police unions held silent protests Friday after two officers killed themselves last week. Unions say police ranks have seen 28 suicides so far this year, compared to 68 over all of 2018.
On another protest topic, the media rights group Reporters Without Borders and Frances National Journalists Union protested Sunday on behalf of journalists who were detained and roughed up by police during Saturdays clashes.
Read more of this AP report published by ABC News.