At least 135 people were arrested in fresh protests across France on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said, as large-scale demonstrations packed the streets of Paris ahead of the NFL's much-anticipated showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints in the capital.
Around 70,000 French police officers, including elite anti-terrorism units, are deployed in the country in a bid to stop a repeat of the looting, clashes, and fires that started last weekend amid a wave of youth-led dissent across southern and western Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters in France decried soaring living costs and education funding, spiraling into bursts of violence and ransacking of clothes, food, and technology stores in France's worst unrest in decades earlier this month.
French officials imposed broad restrictions, including banning some public gatherings and instituting curfews, while blaming far-left organizations, anti-government groups and "criminals" for fanning demonstrations that started as student and trade union-led protests.
The events on Saturday came a day after a drive-by shooting on the outskirts of Paris, which killed one person and injured several others. Authorities have described the incident as a racially motivated terror attack. French media said the 39-year-old suspect was detained in Coignières, just west of La Verrière.
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Clashes Spread Nationwide
More than 100,000 people protested on Saturday in Paris alone, police said.
The number of arrests only includes those detained by law enforcement before 1 p.m. local time, and most came after police seized potential weapons from these individuals, Nuñez said.
A person was stopped while carrying a pistol in the southwestern city of Bordeaux, according to Prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Gironde in an X post, while mortars, Molotov cocktails, fireworks and iron bars were confiscated in the southeastern Isère region.
Authorities in the eastern city of Lyon said groups of hooded or masked people "with hostile intentions" had targeted security forces with iron pellets, and officials had used tear gas against those "preparing to commit acts of violence and vandalism."
Nearly 400 masked individuals vandalized parts of the city of Grenoble and attacked law enforcement on the sidelines of the demonstrations, authorities said, adding that police intervened to disperse and apprehend the vandals and restore order.
Local officials said law enforcement had used tear gas and water cannons to push back protesters who were trying to break through barriers in the western city of Nantes, while the chemical irritant was also reportedly used in Marseille and Nice, according to newspaper Le Parisien.
Officers trained in tackling urban warfare were deployed in the city of Orléans, Euronews reported, after protesters gathered in a show of force against a far-right National Rally event taking place in the area.
Steelers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers Says NFL Is 'Alert' to What's Happening
Americans visiting Paris for Sunday's NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints were warned by the U.S. embassy in Paris to avoid crowded areas over the weekend and "exercise caution and be aware of their surroundings."
The teams are set to go head-to-head at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, just outside central Paris. The NFL has said extra security measures will be in place and Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said the organizers were "alert to what’s going on."
"This game means a lot to the NFL," he said on Friday. "If it was unsafe, then I’m sure we wouldn’t be here."
“It’s looking like tomorrow is going to be a bad day in France, so you worry about it,” President Donald Trump told reporters Friday. “I would have said the NFL could have probably postponed that match, if you want to know, because France is really in trouble."
The NFL shuttered its "NFL House" pop-up location in Paris on Saturday, citing " accessibility issues."
Fan Nick Paiva told NBC News that he "was looking forward to just checking out some of the installations they had—they were going to have the Lombardi Trophy.”
Meanwhile, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Saints owner Gayle Benson, and Steelers owner Art Rooney II met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Friday to discuss this weekend's game as well as the future of the league in the country.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Anthony Murray and Matthew Cannon.