Georgia sees third night of mass protests after ruling party suspends EU talks

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00:00Some waving EU flags, thousands of Georgians gathered in Tbilisi for a third night of demonstrations

00:06against the government's decision to delay EU accession talks.

00:10On Saturday, authorities announced they'd detained dozens of people overnight, during

00:15a protest that saw demonstrators face off with police, who fired a water cannon and

00:19tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds.

00:22In the wake of the clashes, Georgia's Prime Minister accused pro-EU opposition forces

00:26of planning a revolution.

00:29In the last four years alone, we have seen two attempts from overseas to stage and finance

00:35a revolution, but both failed.

00:38Today, the opposition's strength is even further reduced.

00:42As a result, the third attempt at a revolution will fail too.

00:49An accusation rejected by the country's pro-EU president, Salome Zurabishvili, who referred

00:54to the demonstrations as a demand for legitimate rights to have new elections.

00:59She and government critics argue that the October parliamentary election, in which the

01:04Georgian Dream Party clinched nearly 54% of the vote, was rigged.

01:09MEPs have also rejected the outcome of the election and are urging for a rerun.

01:14Speaking to France 24, Zurabishvili described Georgia's parliament as illegitimate and insisted

01:20she would not leave office when her term ends in December.

01:24My mandate ends when the new legitimate president will be elected, it depends on new elections,

01:31which is the main demand of the people that are on the streets.

01:34Together with this new demand of new elections, what they want and what they are saying is

01:39that they are not going to accept that the Georgian so-called dream tries to take Georgia

01:46back into Russia.

01:48EU membership is widely popular in the country, but the bloc has put Georgia's application

01:53on pause over legislation including the so-called foreign agent law voted through by the country's

01:59parliament earlier this year.

02:01The EU has referred to the law as draconian and pro-Russian.

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