'Shameful scenes of violence' in London

Voices across the political spectrum have expressed their outrage and disgust after violent scenes involving protesters and police in central London on Saturday.

Last weekend a Black Lives Matter, or BLM, rally in Westminster ended in confrontations between some demonstrators and police, and also the defacing of statues including one of former British prime ministers Winston Churchill.

Amid rumors of more threatened damage this weekend, various groups, some of which called themselves statue defenders, arranged to gather in London at the same time as another BLM rally in Hyde Park was scheduled.

This was later moved to Friday because of security fears but despite that, Saturday's counter-demonstration still went ahead, with participants from far-right political groups taking part, and it soon degenerated into violent confrontation between protestors and police.

"Racist thuggery has no place on our streets. Anyone attacking the police will be met with the full force of the law," said Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer said violence against police was "completely unacceptable" and said the London protests were "led by those intent on causing violence and sowing hate for their own ends".

London Mayor Sadiq Khan added that: "millions of Londoners will have been disgusted by the shameful scenes of violence, desecration and racism displayed by the right-wing extremists who gathered in our city."

Small, peaceful demonstrations in support of the BLM movement went ahead in Hyde Park and Marble Arch, and at cities outside London, including Brighton, Liverpool and Newcastle.

On Sunday, London's Metropolitan Police service reported that more than 100 arrests had been made over the course of the day, for off ences including breach of the peace, violent disorder, assaulting offi cers, possession of an off ensive weapon, being drunk and disorderly, and possession of Class A drugs.

Separately, a man handed himself in at a police station in Essex after the publication of images taken during the protest of someone urinating next to a memorial to a police offi cer killed in a terrorist attack on Westminster in 2018.

There were also angry scenes in the French capital Paris, as a largely peaceful but unauthorized march against police brutality and racism ended with tear gas being fi red.

The death during arrest of George Floyd in the United States has provoked anger worldwide, and in France it has raised awareness of the death in 2016 of 24-year-old Adama Traore, who died while being detained by police.

Officially, his cause of death remains unclear, but his family say he was asphyxiated by three offi cers using the weight of their bodies to hold him down.

"The death of George Floyd has a strong echo in the death in France of my little brother," said his sister Assa Traore. "What's happening in the United States is happening in France. Our brothers are dying."

Protesters chanting "no justice, no peace" first gathered at the Place de la Republique, and were later refused permission to move toward the Opera House in the center of Paris. After three hours, missiles were thrown and the police charged groups of protesters in a move to break up the demonstration.