A legion of Parisians fleeing the French capital snarled traffic, rendering the city paralyzed on Thursday. This came in response to French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement that a second national lockdown to rein in a second wave of COVID-19 was taking effect from midnight. Violent anti-lockdown protests broke out in Châtelet-les-Halles district of Paris. On Thursday, the public health agency logged 47,637 new COVID-19 infections and 234 deaths in a span of 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll beyond 36,000.