France was bracing Friday for another weekend of protests after demonstrations a week earlier descended into some of the country’s worst urban violence in years, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to step up efforts to restore order and regain control of the crisis.
Macron, who announced Thursday that only trade union-organized demonstrations would be permitted this weekend, was scheduled to convene his defense council of senior ministers and officials before meeting with security forces.
He was also due to meet representatives of high school students for the first time. Protests over school conditions, initially driven by students, have since spread nationwide, evolving into a broader expression of public anger over the government and the rising cost of living.
The unrest has erupted at a critical moment for France, just six months before elections to choose Macron’s successor. A new poll showed far-right candidate Marine Le Pen leading the race, with the latest developments further strengthening her position.
Adding to tensions, Le Pen was due to host her National Rally (RN) party congress in Orleans over the weekend, with thousands of supporters expected. Local authorities feared clashes as opponents headed to the city.
Macron was due to announce "additional decisions” after the defense council meeting, on top of the limited curfews already announced, his office said.
At the meeting with students, "we will present our demands to him, which remain the same: the state of school infrastructure and an overhaul of the Parcoursup (university admissions) system,” Nathanael Combary, president of Renouveau Lyceen (High School Renewal), told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Pierre Sourzat, who heads Les Lyceens (The High School Students), was skeptical.
"He’ll listen to us, pretend he’s understood us, and then nothing will come of it,” Sourzat said.
Macron’s government has sought to distinguish between the legitimate demands of protesters and the looting, arson and ransacking that erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations last Saturday.
In a judicial response of unprecedented firmness, courts have already sentenced 217 people, half of them first-time offenders, to prison over Saturday’s violence, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said.
On Thursday, Macron called for "the utmost severity” against "acts of delinquency,” accusing "ultra-left” groups of seeking to "bring down the republic” last weekend.
Police have a responsibility
Demonstrations in Marseille in the south and Lyon in the southeast were banned for the weekend, while in Paris, protesters would be allowed to march only along a limited route between Bastille and Nation squares.
Marseille authorities, however, reversed a decision to suspend all public transportation in the city Saturday. In the capital, leading museums, including the Louvre, were to close Saturday, while the Art Basel art fair was being cut short.
About 20% more security personnel were to be deployed this weekend following heavy criticism of police preparedness and intelligence gathering ahead of last week’s violence.
"In a country governed by the rule of law, the police have a responsibility both to ensure that protests can take place peacefully and safely and to protect the public from violent disorder,” said Eva Cosse, senior Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. She also expressed alarm over reports of children being seriously injured by crowd-control weapons.
The violence has tarnished France’s image ahead of elections that could mark a turning point in its modern history, while the government’s growing debt burden has also unsettled investors.
A Harris Interactive poll for M6/RTL conducted after the violence showed Le Pen surging to 33% to 35% in the first round of the presidential election.
The poll projected that far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon would face Le Pen in a runoff, where she would win decisively with about 70% of the vote.