France braces for massive protests: Yellow Vests to join students on Saturday

We're joined by Shirley Sitbon. Shirley, those are some of the violent images we're seeing, but of course there have been a lot of people who've been marching peacefully over the last three weeks. To keep the momentum going, they're broadening the appeal on Saturday. Well, it's not really the students who are broadening. There had been for a while, for months and months, calls to resume the Yellow Vest movement, and that has been online for a while, And tomorrow was the date set way before the students in the high schools were blockaded and protests were being held. And let's look at a map, a map that shows the number of events, because you asked me earlier, how many people are we due to expect? Well, look at this map. About 1,500 events, protest events across the country. This goes from very small to large. We don't know the exact figures. Outside of Paris, about 100,000 people are expected, according to the interior ministry. They haven't said how many in Paris. This is from which website here? This is one of the websites calling for the protest. And they're saying these are the events that are organized. This includes, and they have details, areas that are being blockaded, refineries, schools, roads. This goes from the small road in the countryside to train stations. This is all of the events, including several marches, dozens of marches in France's biggest cities. So, yes. What is the call? What is it that they're, what's their top demand? Well, it's mainly, this is the converging of struggles because we, the yellow vest, of course, it's the same thing as eight years ago. it's the the price price hikes the fact that salaries are not increasing and that prices have inflated for years and years some people this morning said that they feel like they go to work just to be able to fill up their gas tank and go to back to work uh so they feel that this is all they're doing and also uh people feel like they're they are struggling more and more when others the richest are getting richer and when some multinational companies are getting record results so they feel that the situation should radically change uh so yes but also when you look at schools there are things that cost money and others that don't and you see that authorities are looking at some ways to improve the situation for example when you look at that system that with various algorithms gives the students the place where they'll study after high school and many people are unhappy with it say that it's unfair they're against it uh and well they want this to be revised as well so there are various things but this comes of course as there are many budget problems for France a huge uh problem with debt so how much will the government be able to give like that or does it need to rethink entirely the whole system that's what everybody's looking at now the yellow vests movement ended in two ways they had these sort of town hall style meetings but also public opinion turned against the protesters as the violence dragged on this time with the students uh the heavy hand of the police has kind of backfired on the government yes well in previous the previous protests as well because there was a lot of violence and we can see these are images from these days but in in a second you also put some images from back then when people were wounded severely wounded some people were actually even killed during the the protest the protest and so this time yes indeed there was a lot of criticism uh when you uh when you think about what happened in schools and there's actually a controversy within uh the police yesterday one of the unions the right-wing unions alliance filed a complaint saying the country's putting their lives at risk because their superiors their commanders are not allowing them to use certain weapons against those who are protesting and are endangering their lives as they said many hundreds of police have been wounded as have more than 700 yes and more and as well as students, of course, must be said. But some commanders have told their officers, do not use some of these weapons. It's not adapted to these schools. It's not adapted. And that's why the union complained nationally, filed this complaint. And today we had an answer from the interior minister. He confirms that there's controversy, but he said that he sets his line straight. And he told these commanders to use all of the weapons when necessary. We can Listen now to Laurent Nunez. In some areas, some have instructed officers not to use certain weapons. I responded immediately by ordering them to follow my instructions. It's out of the question to ban certain intermediary weapons when police and security forces in general need them. It's their job. I instructed them to restore public order, and they need to carry this out. He also says that they need to use the weapons in a proportionate way, This morning in the same interview, he also said that now, you know, there was one type of stun grenade that was banned by the use of police in certain schools and school protests. Well, now he says that all of the intermediary weapons are allowed for police when the situation requires the use of such weapons, he adds. So, yes, that's the situation now. So we don't know what's happening. But, yes, many people have been injured. and yes many people also say that it's been politicized and sometimes just to look away from the actual demands and requests of people which are legitimate we're looking more at actually the violence and that you know distorts things as well Joseph Hippol, many thanks for that update