Protesters angry over pandemic restrictions have driven towards Paris in an effort to blockade the French capital – despite a police ban.

The scattered convoys of vehicles were inspired in part by lorry drivers who have blocked Canada’s capital Ottawa and prevented border crossings, with French protesters sharing images of their Canadian counterparts.

There are no clear leaders or goals, but it comes on the back of months of protests against the French government’s vaccination programme and anti-virus rules.

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More than 7,000 police officers were deployed to toll booths and other key sites to try to prevent a blockade and protesters have been warned of heavy fines and other punishment if they defy the ban.

“We’ve been going around in circles for three years,” said pensioner Jean-Marie Azais, part of a “Convoie de Liberte”
headed to the capital from the southwest.

“We saw the Canadians and said to ourselves, ‘It’s awesome, what they’re doing’. In eight days, boom, something was sparked.”

However, some groups are threatening to continue their journey to Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the European Union, and to meet up with drivers from other countries on Monday.

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A similar “freedom convoy”, planned for Friday in Vienna, was cancelled after a police ban.

Some far-right and other figures in France appeared to be trying to revitalise their own protest movements, which represent a small minority of French citizens, by capitalising on the global attention to the Canadian lorry drivers.

Some people wore yellow vests – a symbol of a French protest movement against perceived economic injustice which largely fizzled out in 2019.

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France has a high vaccination rate – with 77% of the population fully inoculated – and the government is gradually easing virus restrictions, including a requirement for fully vaccinated travellers to show evidence of a negative COVID test on arrival in the country.

On Friday, France reported 3,371 people in intensive care units for COVID-19, down by 45. However, French hospitals and older adults have been hit hard by repeated infection surges, with health minister Olivier Veran saying on Thursday it is too early for people to let their guard down.