France is bracing for more trouble this coming weekend related to student protests and broader anti-government demonstrations, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said yesterday.
Asked if Saturday could be another high-risk day, regarding the likelihood of violent clashes between demonstrators and police, Nunez told BFM TV: “Quite clearly, yes.”
Nunez added that curfews that have been set up to try and prevent the looting and vandalism that have broken out on the sidelines of demonstrations were also likely to stay in place, reports Reuters.
President Emmanuel Macron warned that the new wave of protests this weekend could turn “risky”, adding that protest routes would remain outside city centres to protect public order.
“Next Saturday is expected to be another risky day,” Macron said during a visit to Marseille, France’s second-largest city, where protesters briefly stormed city hall on October 17.
Macron acknowledged that authorities had “not anticipated at all” the scale of the demonstrations a week earlier, reports AFP.
Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right candidate to succeed Macron, kicked off her campaign Sunday evening vowing to “restore the rule of law” if elected next year.
Le Pen -- the frontrunner in the polls -- seems to be benefiting from the convulsions France has been going through for weeks. “We are going to restore the rule of law,” she said.
She was addressing 8,500 supporters of her nationalist, anti-immigration party in the city of Orleans, where Joan of Arc -- revered by the far right as a symbol of national resistance -- lifted an English siege in 1429.