The French government and security forces are on high alert ahead of major protests scheduled across France on 17 October. Unions and citizens branding themselves as “yellow vests” will take to the streets to denounce the cost-of-living crisis and rising fuel prices, with large numbers of student protestors also expected to join.
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According to a source close to France’s Interior Ministry, 500 actions are planned across the country on Saturday, alongside 90 estimated protests. The protests follow four weeks of student demonstrations over a range of issues, including teacher absences, overcrowded classrooms and outdated facilities.
Most student protests have been peaceful, but there have been clashes involving rioters and widespread criticism of alleged police brutality and violence.
Ahead of Saturday’s protests, authorities are anticipating possible violence in Paris and other major cities. The source told Euronews that the far-left movement could seek to provoke confrontations with law enforcement and attempt to breach security perimeters along protest routes.
The source also warned that blockades of key transportation routes and essential infrastructure would “not be tolerated.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that whilst the right to protest “is fully respected,” it “must be accompanied by respect for people and property.”
“That is why I call for calm and respect: these rights must be preserved,” he said.
Mounting scrutiny of police actions
French law enforcement authorities have faced increasing scrutiny in recent weeks amid several allegations of police violence.
In one case, a 15-year-old schoolboy allegedly lost an eye after being struck by a police rubber bullet. In a separate incident, a 14-year-old reportedly lost his hand after picking up a police stun grenade. The circumstances surrounding both cases remain under investigation.
Following the latter case, France suspended the use of certain types of stun grenades.
Yet, in an interview on Friday, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said that the use of stun grenades would be allowed on 17 October should “serious urban violence” occur on the sidelines of demonstrations, whilst cautioning that stun grenades were “never used when things are going well.”
Nuñez told France’s Senate on Tuesday that 36 investigations into alleged police violence during student protests had been opened. He said that four of these cases related to mutilating injuries and six to significant injuries, whilst the others were related to alleged blows, insults and reported sexual violence.
There has been speculation that the 17 October demonstration could mark the return of the yellow vest grassroots movement, which emerged in 2018 in reaction to a planned government fuel and diesel tax hike.
For months, yellow vest protestors gathered every weekend to block roundabouts, motorways, and fuel depots across the country, with tense police clashes also occurring.
Meanwhile, the French government is grappling with a major public debt crisis as it attempts to pass a budget containing austerity measures through a hung parliament.
Police union lodges complaint against state for ‘endangering lives of others’
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Thursday that 937 police officers and gendarmes had been injured since the start of the protests. He also reported injuries among 248 students and 149 teaching staff members, which he said was the highest number of injuries ever recorded by France’s Education Ministry.
Lecornu warned that the “secondary school student movement” was transforming into a “wave of urban violence.”
Meanwhile, Alliance Police Nationale, one of France’s largest police unions, announced in a statement on Tuesday that it would lodge a complaint against the state “for endangering the lives of others.”
The union denounced what it qualified as “contradictory orders” given to police officers, who have been “exposed to violence and left at the mercy of public hostility” over the course of secondary school protests.
“After the president’s [French President Emmanuel Macron] expressions of empathy towards rioters and emphasis on dialogue, we are now faced with vague instructions, contradictory orders and superficial public statements!”
“The discrepancy between Laurent Nuñez’s public statements and the verbal instructions passed down through the chain of command has become unbearable,” the union said.
The hard-left France Unbowed party has been accused by the government and political opponents of encouraging violence and stoking unrest through inflammatory language.
In a speech delivered on 30 September, the party’s leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, urged his supporters to “stand up to police brutality,” adding that “there will be neither forgetting nor forgiveness for anyone.”
He later qualified his comments, stating that he backed peaceful protest methods.
