France will deploy 70,000 police officers across the country for protests planned on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Friday, as the government braces for more violence a week after riots ripped through Paris and other major cities.1,2,4
Nunez said calls for violence and looting were circulating online. "We will be uncompromising with rioters, looters and all those who commit acts of violence," Nunez told reporters on Friday.1
The regular police will be reinforced by elite units, mounted police and heavy vehicles, and equipped with helicopters, water cannon, drones and anti-drone systems, according to the minister. "We will be extremely vigilant," he added, vowing to "let absolutely nothing pass."1
The police presence is being boosted as the country braces for another weekend of anti-government protests. The movement began with students demanding better facilities, more teachers and other improvements to the education system, but it has since grown into a general outpouring of anger over the cost of living.1,4
The protests escalated into violent riots on October 17. Authorities accused radical militants and bands of young looters of taking advantage of the protesters' anger to sow chaos, and police have faced groups of masked looters. France 24 described the weekend as marking France's most violent unrest in years.1,5
Macron announced the security decisions after a National Security Council meeting with intelligence chiefs on Thursday. Speaking at the Elysee after returning from a three-day tour of the Gulf, he admitted "failures in anticipation and surprise effects" the previous Saturday and called for the punishment of "criminal acts" and "political and even seditious acts." He attributed the violence to "ultra-left" groups, which he accused of trying to "bring down the Republic."2
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu had acknowledged earlier in the week that the riots were assisted by intelligence failures, a static rather than mobile police response, and the decision not to cancel leave for police officers. The government is also enforcing police with military units, and only one protest has been approved for Saturday, along a route approved by police.2
Macron has told local authorities to ban non-union protests on Saturday. At least 19 cities, including Nantes, Narbonne, Avignon and Montpellier, have banned protests altogether. Dozens of protesters nonetheless took to the Paris streets on Thursday despite bans ordered in multiple French cities.2,3,5
Roughly 24 metro stations will be closed along the expected route of protests. Most of Paris's main museums, including the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and the Grand Palais, will be closed on Saturday, according to Afar magazine, and the art fair Art Basel Paris will close on Friday, days early. A curfew remains in place in the capital.2
Lecornu told parliament on Tuesday that the unrest stemmed from an "insurrectionary plan" by left-wing groups. Responding to a question from a lawmaker, he referred to "the planning, in certain places, of an insurrectionary scheme led by far-left and ultra-left fringe groups." "We do not tolerate seditious fringe groups being able to march on the Elysee, on Matignon," he said. A readout of an Oct. 1 government crisis meeting cited a shared intelligence assessment that the movement was "an operation organised by LFI (France Unbowed) and its proxies on the far left."2
Jean-Luc Melenchon, who runs LFI, has denounced the government's response as overblown and authoritarian. In a Thursday post on X, he wrote: "Macron's camp is destroying the republican state. On Saturday, the army is guarding buildings instead of the police, and the Paris police prefect is asking shopkeepers to call on private security guards... And the Prime Minister is convening chitchat meetings with no objective." He urged protesters to go ahead with protests on Tuesday.2
A gunman shot several people in Trappes and La Verriere on Friday, killing one, and the shooting is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack. The reports differ on the number wounded: the Washington Examiner said several others were wounded, while France 24 put the figure at four and reported that a suspect had been arrested.2,5
Macron also met student union representatives, but the reports did not include the unions' reaction to the bans or the security measures. Lecornu, defending the government's approach, said: "One must choose sides between violence and the Republic."5,1,2
