PARIS: French police fired tear gas on Saturday to prevent protesters in several cities from advancing to their centres, in fresh nationwide demonstrations held a week after riots broke out, AFP journalists saw.
Police fired tear gas at protesters in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes, hours after Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned: “We will not tolerate any violence or any disturbance of public order.”
Authorities deployed 70,000 security forces across the country for the new marches held against the cost of living, after ones a week ago degenerated into street violence that saw public buildings vandalised, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested.
Nunez said earlier Saturday that 135 people had been arrested and weapons including metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana sword and airsoft weapons had been confiscated.
He said that information was preliminary and could change as the day progressed.
Police said 110,000 people were taking part in a protest march in Paris, where shops were boarded up and the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay museums closed. Scores of riot police stood guard to prevent protesters getting onto the city’s ring road.
The main demonstration in the capital, pushed to its southeast rim under a last-minute order by authorities, was held largely in a calm and festive manner, with some parents and their toddlers looking on from the sidelines.
But there was also widespread anger at President Emmanuel Macron for banning non-union demonstrations his government deemed “illegitimate” and keeping all protesters away from city centres.
Macron took the controversial measures after last weekend’s riots. He has blamed “ultra-left” groups wanting to “bring down the republic” for the worst of the violence seen then.
“There is widespread discontent” over the protest crackdown, said one Paris demonstrator, Lea Berthelot, dressed as France’s national symbol Marianne.
“It undermines not only our ‘liberté’ (freedom) but also our ‘fraternité’ (solidarity),” she said, referring to the official national motto.
In the western city of Nantes, thousands of protesters broke through police lines to reach the city centre, an AFP journalist saw.
Officers had used tear gas and a water cannon to try and stop them, as some of the fringes of the demonstration threw projectiles and aimed fireworks in their direction.
In Lyon, police used tear gas to disperse around 1,000 people gathered in the south of the city. “If they prohibit protests then that means we are heading more and more towards a regime that is fascist, that is dictatorial,” said one 20-year-old protester there, who gave only his first name, Silem.
In Paris, many metro stations in the centre were closed by order of the police, and a curfew is in force in certain city areas with concentrations of shops until Monday.
Murielle Guilbert of the Syndicale Solidaires union said in the march through Paris that it had been “outrageous” to ban non-union protests and restrict their paths.
“We’re here because there is obvious public anger” over low salaries, she said.
Claire, a 26-year-old nurse who did not want to give a last name, said: “Not everyone is out to smash things up. Some of us are simply here to say we disagree and that we just want a better future.”
Along the protest route, two men hung up a slogan reading “Our problem? Billionaires”, while others yelled “All cops are bastards.” “You think I’m happy doing this? I’m just doing my job,” one police officer said to a protester, 21-year-old Axelle Moch, as he fined her 135 euros ($150) for walking across the Place de la Republique, one of the zones under curfew, while holding a protest placard.
“It’s a restriction on our freedom of expression,” which is crazy, said Moch.
The Yellow Vests, who staged disruptive protests against Macron eight years ago, called for more demonstrations on October 31 for “the freedom to protest”.
Many retailers in Paris had boarded up their windows or closed, fearing a return of looters on the margins of demonstrations who stripped stores last weekend.
After being caught flatfooted by that unrest, police this time had armoured vehicles, helicopters and water cannon at the ready.
Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who marched in the Paris rally, said Macron “is going to understand that this is going to repeat itself every week”.
Adding to tensions, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party opened a congress in Orleans to launch her campaign for a presidential election in six months.
Thousands of people yelling anti-fascist slogans marched against Le Pen, and Macron, a pro-business centrist who cannot stand again. “Macron resign. Le Pen in prison,” the crowd yelled. Police put their numbers at 11,000 while organisers said 26,000 took part.
The unrest highlighted tensions in France ahead of the vote, in which Le Pen leads in surveys.
Inflation in France, particularly affecting the cost of fuel, has surged since the start of the Middle East war in February.