Tens of thousands of French people return to protest in the street on a day with few incidents

ParisTens of thousands of people have returned to the streets in France to protest this Saturday against the high cost of living and the lack of investment in education. Unlike October 17, when many cities experienced moments of chaos with fires, looting, and clashes with the police, this Saturday the citizen mobilization was calmer and only a few disturbances were recorded in cities such as Lyon, Marseille, and Nice. In Paris, the march was massive, peaceful, and almost without incident. "The poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer. It is no longer liberty, equality, and fraternity. It is injustice, inequality, and privilege," summarized Louise, a 38-year-old protester in Paris, to justify why so many people have returned to demonstrate despite the government's threats.

To avoid a repeat of Saturday's overflows, France had armored itself and demonstrations had been authorized in dribs and drabs. Following the instructions of President Emmanuel Macron, only protests called by unions had been permitted. Those called by students and the yellow vests had been banned. Furthermore, the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, had warned that the police would be inflexible with violent individuals. The exceptional deployment of law enforcement, with 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, elite units, soldiers, and armored vehicles, has prevented a day of disturbances of the magnitude of October 17.

There are protests in the French capital, but also in dozens of other locations in the country, such as Nantes, Lyon, Strasbourg, or Bordeaux. Most of the demonstrations have taken place this Saturday following the routes marked by the authorities, and far from urban centers. The Paris prefecture, for example, decided at the last moment to change the route of the capital's demonstration to move it away from the center: initially, it was supposed to leave from the Place de la Bastille and travel through the city until reaching the Place de la Nation, and finally, it took place between the Porte d'Italie and the Porte de Vincennes, a route that placed the protesters almost on the periphery, far from the epicenter of last Saturday's disturbances.

Anti-fascist protest

In Orleans, in the center of France, the police feared serious riots because a demonstration had been called against the far right, coinciding with the congress that Marine Le Pen's party, National Rally (RN), is holding this weekend in the city to launch its presidential campaign. Surveillance and the deployment of law enforcement officers have been especially high, but the anti-fascist protest—in which leftist leaders and trade union leaders participated—has taken place without incident.

Unlike last week, calm characterizes most of the mobilizations and, for the moment, there have been no major incidents. Even so, 135 people have been arrested, most of them during searches that the police are carrying out at the checkpoints they have deployed in the cities. In many of these searches, "a large quantity" of material "intended to serve as weapons" has been confiscated, according to the Minister of the Interior.

Until 1 p.m., no significant problems had been recorded, but later the first skirmishes occurred in Lyon, in the south of France. Officers fired tear gas to clear a group of protesters, mostly students, who were protesting outside the authorized route. The Prefecture justified this by saying that, among the protesters, there were masked individuals who raised fears of possible acts of vandalism.

Also in Nice, in the southeast of the country, authorities intervened to clear a square. In this case, they did so using water cannons. In Paris, there was only a brief moment of tension when groups of protesters tried to invade the capital's ring road, but the police prevented them from doing so.

Banners against the government

Another difference with respect to the mobilizations of last week is that many protesters are carrying signs this Saturday with slogans against the government and the police to express their disagreement with the many exceptional measures taken by the executive to curb the riots in the country, which have even included nighttime curfews. "We are not just protesting for our demands to the state, now we are protesting for our right to protest. It is about our freedom to go out and express ourselves in our country," said an indignant Julian-Gabriel Dare, one of the many students who were protesting again in Paris this Saturday. Another young man expressed the same opinion: "We are becoming a police state."

The leader of the French radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is also one of the thousands of participants in the march in Paris and has again urged the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to give in to the protesters' demands. "He is still in time to give in; afterwards, he will have nothing left but the exit door. Give in and stop wasting our time," he declared, referring to the presidential elections scheduled for April of next year, in which he will run once again as a candidate. Likewise, he warned that, if the social demands are not met, the demonstrations will be repeated "every week".