Major museums in Paris closed and authorities deployed a sizeable police force for a round of new protests on Saturday across France, hoping to prevent a repeat of last week’s violent unrest that shocked the country.
Scenes of looting, burned-out cars and attacks on public buildings left the impression that the government had lost control, as groups of masked vandals targeted businesses in Paris and other city centers.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said as many as 70,000 officers will be deployed nationwide, along with helicopters, armoured vehicles and water cannons. In central Paris, a few dozen gendarmes were stationed beneath the Arc de Triomphe and along the nearby avenues.
A massive turnout is expected again after more than half a million took to the streets last week.
Major museums including the Louvre, Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum and Grand Palais - where a major Cézanne exhibit is on display - are closed on Saturday. Art Basel, one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fairs, opened to the public on Friday, but only for the day, with the threat of unrest prompting organisers to cancel the weekend programme.
Parisian shopkeepers have been barricading their stores all week. Near the Saint-Lazare train station, Akram Ahmed, a 34-year-old contractor, was boarding up an optician’s shop.
"I got the call last night,” he said. "The owner seemed desperate. He said I was saving his life.”
In a last minute change on Friday, police moved the route of the Paris march to the city’s southeastern edges, away from central neighbourhoods such as Place de la Republique, where last Saturday’s violence left shops ransacked and cars burned.
Following the unrest, Paris police prefect Patrice Faure urged Parisian shopkeepers to hire security guards. He later clarified that protecting business owners and their establishments is the responsibility of the government.
Some 3,000 shops across France were damaged or looted last weekend.
Protest marches are scheduled in Paris and Marseille, but some other rallies, including in Lyon, Nice and Montpellier, have been banned by local authorities. In Lyon, French media reported that police used tear gas Saturday morning.
Cities outside Paris were hit hard by the unrest. Two suspects in the fire that nearly destroyed Limoges’ 19th-century city hall were placed under formal investigation and held pending trial, French media reported. The probe includes attempted murder of a public official.
Trade unions have criticised the bans, calling them violations of freedom of expression, which is protected by the constitution.
President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, entered the crisis in the final stretches of his term, with his popularity at its lowest since he took office in 2017. He has said that the measures are needed to protect city centers, businesses and public buildings.
Thousands of people gathered on Saturday morning for an anti-far-right protest in the city of Orléans, about 110km (70 miles) south of Paris. It was organised on the sidelines of a two-day congress of Marine Le Pen’s nationalist, anti-immigration party ahead of next spring’s presidential election.
The demonstrations first erupted last month in a high school southeast of Paris over a lack of staff.
From there, class boycotts and demonstrations spread to other Paris suburbs and nationwide, including smaller towns. High school students have raised concerns about underfunded schools and staff shortages, particularly in lower-income neighborhoods. Some also called for a reform of the university admissions system, seen by many as unfair.
With the government seemingly unable to respond to students’ demands, the movement has morphed into larger protests over soaring living costs, just months before the vote to choose Macron’s successor.
"The money is now concentrated in the hands of very few people," said Victoria Ambrosini, an art critic and art teacher at Saint-Denis University. "And it’s not possible anymore.” - AP
