Thousands of protesters are expected to pour onto city streets across France again on Saturday, a now-weekly expression of national grievance that has led to clashes between protesters and the police, and kept the country on edge. Adding to those fears: Halloween, which also falls on Saturday. The French authorities, citing calls on social media for people to revolt and encouraging them to wear masks and costumes, warned that the risk of a new outbreak of violence was high.
Huge demonstrations last Saturday did not descend into the lawlessness that erupted the week before, in part because of a heavy security force, which will be marshaled again. In Paris, the authorities moved the route for marchers to the city’s eastern periphery, as they did previously, drawing outrage and fruitless legal challenges from organizers. France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, warned on Thursday that it could be a “day with a very high risk to public order.” He promised to deploy 70,000 police officers, matching the numbers on Oct. 24.
There is ample fuel for a repeat of those combustible scenes. Students, who are returning to school on Monday after a two-week break, were not mollified by the government’s initial response to their demands. The Education Ministry agreed to cap some class sizes, offer low-interest loans to rebuild school buildings and phase out an unpopular online college admissions platform. The students vowed to go on protesting. Their two-month-old movement has grown to include university students, public workers and veterans of the “yellow vest” movement that convulsed France from 2018 to 2020.
While tensions could rise during the day, the authorities said they were most worried about trouble breaking out after nightfall. Mr. Nuñez warned it was a criminal offense to conceal one’s face during a demonstration in which public order is disrupted.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing