Paris Police banned protests and demonstrations in some areas of the city on Thursday, including around the presidential palace, along the Champs-Elysées and near other tourist sites, citing the risk of violence.
Several other cities around France also prohibited protests, Agence France-Presse reported, with larger demonstrations planned for Saturday. The police force issued the ban in a decree published on its website late Wednesday. Protests across France this past weekend drew more than half a million people and degenerated into violence, vandalism and looting. The police decree refers primarily to student protests, which have been running since mid-September and stem from complaints about overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and the system used to allocate university slots. That action was referred to directly in the decree as part of the justification for Thursday’s ban: “Spontaneous actions are also possible on a scattered basis throughout the capital, targeting centers of authority or sites that serve as symbols, which could have international reverberations, similar to the one carried out by students at the Ecole du Louvre just recently.
Thursday’s ban in Paris is in force from 8 AM to 8 PM.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has promised “massive” security measures for next weekend’s demonstrations. Several demonstrations “in sympathy” with high school student have also sprung up, including one that forced the Louvre museum to close on Monday.
Since then, French officials have acknowledged failures in law-enforcement and rolled out tougher security measures, as well as pledging aid for businesses affected. Early on Thursday, before the ban came into effect, several student were dragging green recycling bins toward the front door of a university in Paris’s 6th arrondissement, a frequently used method of blocking access.
