PARIS: France was erecting a ring of steel in major cities ahead of new protests Saturday, with police, helicopters and armoured vehicles seeking to prevent a repeat of the violence and looting which erupted during nationwide demonstrations last weekend. Shops and restaurants in central Paris were boarded up, the world-famous Louvre and Musee d'Orsay were closed and a curfew was in place for parts of the French capital ahead of hundreds of demonstrations planned across the country.
Weeks of protests by high school students over learning conditions sparked a movement that has since spread nationwide, fuelled by broader anger over the rising cost of living. But some of the worst urban violence in years exploded on the sidelines of the demonstrations a week ago, which saw more than half a million people turn out.
About 70,000 security personnel will be deployed on Saturday, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, while Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned late on Friday that the threat of violence remains high. The protests have come at a critical moment for France six months ahead of elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron, with a new poll underlining far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as the frontrunner and suggesting her position has been strengthened by the latest events.
Adding to tensions, Le Pen is due at the weekend to host her National Rally party congress in Orleans, with thousands of supporters expected and local authorities fearing clashes as counter-protesters also head to the city south of Paris. There, shops were also boarded up and residents wary.
The atmosphere is truly strange for a Saturday morning; everything is closed, and some businesses are barricaded. We really hope the security measures will prevent the kind of violence we saw last week, Stephane Gentil, a local resident out for a bike ride, told reporters.
Macron met representatives of secondary school pupils on Friday, but they emerged from the talks urging students to keep protesting until the government put forward concrete proposals to address their demands. Macron's government has sought to draw a line between the legitimate demands of protesters and the looting, burning and ransacking that erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations last Saturday, which it has blamed on ultra-left groups.
Courts have already sent 217 people, half of them first-time offenders, to prison over the events on Saturday, officials said.