France is bracing for further chaos today ahead of a day of protests which will see shopkeepers prepare for violence and 70,000 riot police take to the nation’s streets.
Officers across France are under pressure to maintain security after accusations of losing control in some cities last weekend, while facing scrutiny over their riot-control tactics that have left some teenagers seriously injured.
Last weekend, protests turned violent in cities across the country with town halls raided, shops looted and the iconic tourist information building in Lyon and town hall in Limoges burned to the ground.
Officers have appeared outnumbered and overwhelmed after the demonstrations widened from dissatisfaction around school conditions to encompass rising living costs and general malaise with the government.
Members of the gilets jaunes joined students and trade unionists as they took to the streets, but President Emmanuel Macron this week announced a crackdown on permitted protest.
He said only demonstrations organised by recognised trade unions will be allowed to go ahead today, and cities including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier have banned protests from taking place today completely.
Shopkeepers have boarded up their premises in Paris and other cities, while some areas have been in partial curfews.
Major tourist attractions including the Louvre, Orsay and Picasso museums are all closed, while a home game for PSG has been moved until Monday.
Shops were boarded up on Saturday morning ahead of another day of protest in Paris
French soldiers are seen on patrol near the Arc de Triomphe in central Paris on Saturday
View of a bike store with display windows protected by wooden panels in Paris ahead of nationwide protests expected later
Regardless of the crackdown by Mr Macron, hundreds of demonstrations are still expected today, with a website associated with the gilets jaunes listing 500 protests and 200 other actions.
Police said more than 100 protesters and residents were injured in Paris on Saturday. Authorities have not released a nationwide injury tally. About 2,400 people were arrested across France that day.
Officers have also faced criticism after a 17-year-old girl lost an eye while participating in a protest in Mulhouse last Saturday, while a 17-year-old boy lost a hand in Saint-Etienne. Other teenagers have suffered disabling injuries during weeks of high school blockades and street demonstrations.
French police forces are equipped with batons, tear gas, sound grenades and foam-round launchers, as well as riot shields equipped with powerful strobe lights designed to disorient protesters.
‘Intermediate-force weapons are defensive response tools that allow law enforcement officers to respond to a threat in a graduated and proportionate manner,’ French National Police said in a statement.
But critics, including families of injured teenagers, say the police have been too heavy-handed.
Some have called for bans on foam-round launchers, tear gas and stun grenades, echoing demands made by human rights groups since the violent 2018 gilets jaunes – ‘yellow vest’ – protests.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International called for a permanent ban on all stun grenades, saying they are designed to shock, disorient and sow panic, and that some can cause permanent hearing loss and life-changing injuries from blasts and shrapnel.
The use of such weapons reflects a broader shift in French policing toward keeping officers at a distance from protesters, said Jean-Marie Godard, an author specializing in France’s internal security.
French President Emmanuel Macron said this week only demonstrations organised by recognised trade unions will be allowed to go ahead today
In the early 2000s, France’s conservative government moved away from community policing, which emphasized foot patrols and engagement with residents, toward specialized riot-control units.
People across France’s political spectrum regret abandoning the community policing model, Mr Godard said.
French policing today differs from that in many other European countries, according to Laura Keesmann, a sociologist at the University of Antwerp who led a wide-ranging comparative study of policing methods in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden. In the other countries studied, police often engage directly with demonstrators, sometimes mingling with crowds to defuse tensions, she said.
‘That is just really, really not the case in France,’ she said. ‘There’s much more of an authoritarian way of policing.’
Ms Keesmann stressed, however, that French police face unusually militant and sometimes violent protesters.
On the eve of last Saturday’s protests, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said his instructions were ‘very clear: the police and gendarmes should be able to use the entirety of the intermediate weapons at their disposal’.
France has more than 250,000 national police officers and gendarmes. Police generally operate in cities, while gendarmes usually cover rural areas and smaller towns. Both forces fall under the Interior Ministry, which said 997 officers and gendarmes were injured during Saturday’s unrest, seven of them seriously.
Mr Godard said protest movements have become increasingly decentralised as labor unions have lost influence over demonstrations, drawing a wider range of participants, including radical groups.
French authorities have blamed much of the recent violence on far-Left radicals, accusing them of orchestrating clashes with police and targeting public buildings. Others took advantage of the unrest to loot businesses, authorities said.
