France is on high alert ahead of a new day of nationwide protests on Saturday, a week after the country saw some of its worst unrest in decades. Sweeping restrictions have been imposed on demonstrations across France but hundreds of thousands of protesters are still expected to gather in Paris and elsewhere for a second round of protests organised by students, trade unions and wider anti-government groups. The interior ministry has said it will deploy 70,000 police officers, ramping up the security presence in French cities, after the government was accused by opposition parties of failing to foresee the scale of the unrest on 17 October.
"We will not let anything go unchallenged," said Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez. "We will be uncompromising with the vandals, with the looters, and all those who commit acts of violence," he added, explaining that separate from the planned protests, numerous calls for violence had been seen on social media from the "far left and radical extreme left". Hundreds of people have been jailed for vandalism, arson and looting after fast-track court hearings in recent days.
President Emmanuel Macron met high-school students' representatives on Friday ahead of Saturday's protests, and although they said he had made clear commitments to them, they said students should "continue to mobilise". Macron decreed earlier this week that only demonstrations organised by a recognised trade unions would be permitted to take place on Saturday, and several key cities including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier have gone further by announcing blanket bans on gatherings. Official announcements appear to have done little to deter organisers, with hundreds of large and small demonstrations planned across France.
After a week in which some cities have lived under partial curfews - including areas of the capital - there is an inconsistent picture across France's cities as to what level of protest will be permitted by authorities. While some mayors have pressed ahead with broad bans, others have agreed to allow demonstrations registered with authorities - for example, in Marseille, a previous order barring all protests was swiftly reversed to allow a trade union-organised march to go ahead. In Paris, a march organised by the student trade union and supported by labour groups has been ordered to stick to a route which does not go through the city centre - though preparations for unrest in some of the city's most recognisable areas are under way regardless.
The Louvre, Orsay and Picasso museums will all be closed on Saturday, a scheduled home match for football team PSG has been moved to Monday, and some businesses have boarded up their windows in anticipation of further looting. In a sign of how a student-led protest movement expanded to become a wider anti-government outpouring, protesters associated with a revived gilet jaunes (yellow-vest) movement could be out in force across France on Saturday. The protest movement, which has attracted support from left and right, led huge disruptive demonstrations during Macron's first term in office.
A website associated with the group listed more than 500 planned demonstrations and some 200 other actions on Saturday, and demanded that Macron resign. In its online call for action, the group said "we refuse to add our voices to the chorus of outrage" over the violence on 17 October and accused police of attacking protesters. France is still reeling from last week's unrest, which saw police vastly outnumbered by protesters and rioters, shops looted and buildings torched - perhaps most emblematically, the ornate 19th-Century town hall in Limoges.
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