French police fired tear gas at demonstrators on the Champs-Elysees and other places in Paris on Saturday after a “Freedom Convoy” protesting against Covid-19 restrictions made it into the capital.

Vehicles carrying protesters managed to get through police checkpoints in central Paris to snarl traffic around the Arc de Triomphe monument.

Inspired by horn-blaring “Freedom Convoy” demonstrations in Canada, motorists waved French flags and honked in defiance of a police order not to enter the city.

Police also threw tear gas grenades to disperse protesters, who are against a vaccine pass required to enter many public places, near the Arc de Triomphe and sprayed demonstrators in a separate march on the other side of the city.

“The vaccine pass is necessary to be able to work or play sports. We can’t stand the vaccine pass any more,” said Nathalie Galdeano who came from southwest France by bus to participate in the protests.

“We don’t want this injection, we want to have the right to choose,” she told Reuters.

The police said that they had arrested 14 people, handed out 337 tickets by mid-afternoon and earlier had stopped 500 vehicles in the morning that were trying to get into Paris.

Meanwhile, 2,000-3,000 people, including some “Yellow Vest” protesters, marched in a separate, authorised demonstration in Paris against Covid-19 restrictions as well as declining standards of living amid surging inflation.

Less than two months from a presidential election, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is eager to keep protests from spiralling into large-scale demonstrations like the anti-government “Yellow Vest” protests of 2018.

Separately police also said they had arrested five protesters in southern Paris in possession of sling shots, hammers, knives and gas masks.

Police had mobilised more than 7,000 officers, set up checkpoints and deployed armoured personnel carriers and water cannon trucks. Canadian truckers protesting a vaccine mandate for trans-border traffic have paralysed parts of Ottawa.