Anti-Gay Marriage Protest in Paris Turns Violent

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

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.