Curfew imposed in certain areas of Paris every night until Monday morning

Well, there's thousands of protesters took to the streets of France this Thursday in spite of bans on demonstrations ordered in multiple French cities. In Paris, they walked a route from the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière to the Gare de Lyon. Organizers of this Paris protest said an administrative court in the city overturned a ban that was issued by the police. The Paris police prefecture previously said that a ban was necessary, given the risk of street violence after groups of masked youth clashed with police forces, looted shops and torched cars over the weekend. The Paris court ruling wasn't immediately made public. More bans are expected in the coming days. French President Emmanuel Macron said such measures are aimed to protect city centres, businesses and public buildings. Saturday's anticipated march will be banned from the centre of Paris and from the Champs-Élysées. And Louvre and other Paris museums say that they will remain closed. With demonstrations in Paris, Nantes, Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Grenoble and other places this Thursday, Eliza Herbert has this look at today's protests. Hundreds of student protesters were at a standstill in Paris on Thursday afternoon. Chanting, singing and standing firm, despite being surrounded by a heavy police presence. This is important because if we give in to pressure and fear, we won't achieve anything. We have to take action. We can't give up because no one is listening to us and we'll keep going until they do. The demonstration in front of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital was authorized to go ahead on Thursday after a city court overturned an initial police ban. But at around 3pm, the prefecture stepped in and said the planned march could not take place. Instead of walking towards Bastille, many protesters dispersed, frustrated at how they had been treated. Local and state authorities have been wrestling with how to approach new major demonstrations planned for this Saturday, after the October 17th cost of living protests were overshadowed by violence and looting. Lyon, Nice, Toulon and Grenoble are among those that have imposed complete bans on public gatherings. While on Thursday, the French president announced new nationwide measures and said so-called illegitimate protests would not be allowed. The rules are simple. The general recommendation is that there should be no protests in the coming days. For people who want to continue protesting when they're labor unions, prefects will suggest alternative routes. When they're not organized by labor unions, protests will be banned wherever possible. An even greater security presence is expected across France throughout the weekend. While in Paris, a march set to start at Bastille has been banned from heading into the city centre and commerce-heavy neighbourhoods. So as we see, big protests across France today. There's also been a high-stakes meeting between the French Prime Minister and representatives of the main political parties. And it ended in acrimony. The reaction doesn't augur well. Manuel Bompard of the LFI, La France Insoumise, said that the Prime Minister was wasting people's time. Fabien Roussel, leader of the French Communists, said that they were very disappointed. And Marine Tondelier of the Greens said that she left the meeting more worried than when she arrived. They all expressed concern that the meeting only addressed keeping order rather than the wider concerns of the workforce and the students. And Sébastien Lecornu also met with the mayors of big cities, Paris, Lyon, Marseille. Let's get more on the situation. We welcome to the studio Alice Cohen-Morazek, who's the international spokesperson of the movement, the L'Union Étudiante. Alice, welcome to France 24. It's a pleasure to meet you. You're an actual student. Tell us what you're studying. So I do politics at Sciences Po University, and I'm here to talk with the mandate of L'Union Étudiante. I'm the international spokesperson for L'Union Étudiante, which is the largest student union in France. How do you think the protests are going? Do you feel that you're getting towards what you want? I mean, the protest is very historic. It is unprecedented. We haven't had such big numbers for 20 years at least. We had 800,000 people in the streets on Saturday. This is huge, especially with the high number of young people in the streets. This is, yeah, really unprecedented. We haven't seen this since 2006. So, unprecedented. Do you feel, do you fear that in some way, what you were doing started off as one idea, and now other people are getting involved, other movements, other groups, and perhaps they are overtaking what you want to do. I mean, the movement has always been directed as everyone that wanted to join it. We are now converging with workers and with the yellow jackets, the gilets jaunes. So this movement is really converging. And I think it's what makes it really impressive with how our demands are really understood by the whole population. It started with education demands for renovation of buildings, for better living and studying conditions, but we see how this speaks to the whole population in France. So there is an issue, a general sort of, I think, common issue of the cost of living, pouvoir d'achat, that kind of thing, people not being able to afford things that they think should be basic and things they need for their life. From the student perspective, let's say high school students and university students like yourself, those conditions you're looking to improve, Tell us more about that. About our living conditions, we have lost as students to more than 3,000 purchasing power ever since Macron came to power. We have one student out of three that cannot eat every day properly. We have one student out of three that cannot find permanent housing at the start of the year. So our living conditions really degraded ever since Macron came to power. And this is true also of our studying conditions. Grants for students did not increase, even though there was inflation. International students now have to pay higher fees than French students to study at university. We consider this to be a national preference measure, taken directly from the programme of Marine Le Pen. So our living and studying conditions decreased, and this is even worse for international students. So in terms of what you're trying to do then, it's the whole raft of things you want to change. Do you feel that you're being listened to? Are they hearing what you're saying? I don't think they're listening to us. We can see this with the repression that we're facing. This repression is huge as well. We haven't seen such a big repression for many years with the numbers of arrests that we've seen, especially for young people. The last time there was such a big number of arrests was in 1961, when the government repressed Algerians wanting to fight for their rights to independence. We haven't seen such big numbers of arrests and repression for years, and the violence from the police is very high as well. Many very young people lost their eyes, lost their arms or hands. Some were not even protesting, they were just passing by. That is one of the things that I think shocks many people when we hear about someone who's gone out to protest in a very peaceful way and all of a sudden it turns into a violent situation and a young person, a 15-year-old boy is the case you're talking about, loses a hand. Another child, I say child, they think themselves as being grown up, but they're teenagers, 15, 14 years of age, losing an eye. This isn't fair in any way, shape or form. That is something that changes their lives. On this issue of the violence that is emerging from both sides, what's your what's your take on the situation what's your view um i think that like at the new agent um violence is has never been a mean of action but we think that we cannot about we cannot talk about any violence without mentioning first the violence that came from the state first and the social violence um well when i mean when you say social violence what do you mean can you be more precise yeah uh when i mean what i mean with social violence is the racist and social violence directed against students with attacks on their rights. When I was talking about international students losing some rights, technically when they lose their rights to APL, which is housing aid, this is like an attack and a racist attack on international students' rights. So we think the violence, whether it is violence from the police or the state, came first. When I see police with batons charging protesters, I think that is wrong. When I see the police firing tear gas canisters, flashball, rubber bullets, those kind of things, protesters in this context, I think that's wrong. But equally, when I see people breaking into shops, stealing things, burning cars, that's wrong too. Do you think that that side of things, the violence from the other groups who've now associated themselves with you, is hurting your situation? It must be, it must be. I mean, we are also doing peaceful demonstrations and I think nobody's talking about it um the media is are only talking about and the government are only talking about those kind of action but nobody's talking about how a thousand eight hundred thousand people were marching in the streets on last saturday and nobody's talking about how very young people are getting um into politics for the first time i know young people that didn't know anything about politics before and that came into this movement for the first time so i think this is what we should also be talking about and that is why what i want to talk about this um very also hopeful protest and very impressive mobilization of the youth alice you're 20 years old you're a student yourself you're here in our studio talking to the entire world about this you are a fine example of what you just said and you know we applaud you being here and speaking so well and so clearly about what your aims and objectives are i need to go back to the violence issue because is it something you condemn when you see um the people who are tagging along with you attach themselves to your protest when they start breaking up things breaking into shops smashing up cars burning cars that is something clearly you have to condemn isn't it you can't be you can't be in favor of that i mean that's not what we do but it's not what you do okay no we we just demonstrate in a very peaceful way and we still get repressed like we still get the repression of tear gas very violent um police charges we still get the curfew we still get all this kind of um repression and even when we block our schools we get very high level of oppression um but i think this is a consequence of um 10 years of attacks on our rights and i think this is the real violence as i say okay so it's a consequence but it's not something you condemn and you're not in favor of it surely yeah i mean that's not a mean of action we demonstrate that's what we do and we block condemning the so-called black blocs who are breaking into things and obviously you're about peaceful demonstration that's what you're saying where does it go from here you've got the big day of protest on saturday there are moves to um dictate where you can go where you can't go control where the march can go there's the possibility perhaps of certain types of demonstration being stopped blocked completely uh by legal order what is your situation on that What do you think about that? We think it's an attack on democracy. Demonstrating is a right. It has been recognised by the constitutional judges. So it is a right. And when the government is forbidding us to demonstrate, this is an attack on democracy. Do you think that perhaps people might also have the right to live in peace and not be under threat of these violent demonstrators? And it is a minority. Most of your people are peaceful. Do you think people also have that right as well, so therefore you have to recognise that you need to sort of comply with the laws as they're being put down? I think this protest is supported massively in all of France. Arguments are supported. We have a website called 10measures.fr, which has been signed by almost 100,000 people in France. So this is a massive demonstration, a massive mobilisation. So I think most people are with us. We have parents, we have teachers supporting us. So I think this movement is really supported by many people and we all want to be able to demonstrate and we don't want attacks on democracy. Students calling for better conditions, I think, is a very noble cause. And Alice, thank you very much for coming in and talking to us about that. Alice Cohen-Morazek from the L'Union Étudiante here in France, your first interview on TV, yes? Yeah. You were excellent, and I'm sure they'll be the first of many. Thank you very much for joining us here. Thank you. And stay safe on your continued protests. Alice Cohen-Morazek from the L'Union Étudiante, Students' Union, here in France.