the violence began after mass stanton kept as protesters hijacked a peaceful rally against the french government's labor reforms the so-called black bloc activists torched cars vandalize shop fronts and clashed with the police our correspondent sheila dubin skee was in the thick of it. we. are in the middle of cashews now starting when the police don't want to live in the caravan you'll see the tear gas is coming up to us the police move again and not because just behind us there is a fire going on the demonstrators have put fire to a vehicle and emerge a bike and as you can see i have smoke because. well as you might have gathered we've just been in the middle of what was quite a large clash between the police and the protesters just look behind me this is one of the trucks with the water cannons and you can see the gendarme now coming down and you can see some of the water in the form that's been on the ground to try and push these protesters back take a look behind me and they're actually trying to barricade themselves up now that's off to they set fire to what looked like a j.c.b.