World

Anti-Gay Marriage Protest in Paris Turns Violent

Authorities didn't expect it, but Francois Hollande may be even less popular than previously imagined

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Paris police used teargas and batons to fight crowds who pushed their way onto the landmark Champs-Elysees avenue and toward the presidential palace as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Hundreds of thousands of people—conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests—converged on the capital on Sunday in a last-ditch bid to stop the bill, with many brought in from the French provinces by bus.