Deployment for Saturday

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced on Friday, 23 October, that 70,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilised across France on Saturday, 24 October. The deployment answers new protests called for that day and online messages urging violence and looting. Local units from the departments will take part alongside elite forces, which the minister named as the RAID, the GIGN and the BRI of the Paris police prefecture. Around twenty Centaure armoured vehicles for the gendarmerie and 15 water cannon vehicles for the police will also be sent out. Helicopters and drones will support the operation, and Nuñez said the instructions he gave were to act with the utmost firmness against looters and agitators.

Online calls and last weekend's damage

Nuñez said the ministry had observed many calls for violence on social media, which he attributed to the ultra-left and the radical far left.

“We note that there are numerous calls from the ultra-left movement and the radical far left.”

Last Saturday, 17 October, protests against the rising cost of living turned violent in Paris and other cities. Czech media reports put turnout at between 550,000 and 800,000 people, and say hundreds of shops were looted and dozens of police officers were injured. A Spanish report cites an estimate of about 3,000 damaged shops. In Lyon, the prefecture said more than 150 shops in the city centre were vandalised, some of them looted, and the tourist office was set on fire.

Limits on demonstrations

Nuñez said mayors and prefects will decide case by case which marches are allowed, based on the risk to public order. He argued that after last week's disorder many local officials consider it impossible to allow a demonstration in a district with many shops. President Emmanuel Macron had already announced bans and restrictions on Thursday, 22 October. That same day a magistrates' union and an association defending constitutional freedoms appealed these instructions to the Constitutional Council. In Lyon, the prefecture issued an order banning all demonstrations on Saturday from 10:00 to 23:00 in the Presqu'île, the old town, the 6th arrondissement and part of the 3rd, which includes the prefecture, the courthouse and Part-Dieu station. Authorities in Marseille banned demonstrations for Saturday, and in Paris the ban covers protests called by the yellow vest movement.

Museums, shops and students

Several Paris museums, including the Louvre and Orsay, will close on Saturday because of the planned protests in the capital. Reports say commercial shops, cultural venues and museums are suspending operations in several French cities, one week after the 17 October disorder. Macron is due to receive representatives of student organisations at the Élysée on Friday, 23 October, at 15:00, after protests that involved violence. Nathanaël Combary, president of Renouveau lycéen, said it was good to be received and that the group would raise school buildings and Parcoursup. Pierre Sourzat, who leads Les Lycéens, was doubtful about the meeting.

“We know very well what will happen: he will listen to us, he will pretend to have understood us, and then there will be no follow-up.”