France braces for new wave of protests, govt warns of 'very high' violence risk

France is once again bracing for fresh protests on Saturday. The country has been rocked by ongoing demonstrations against the rising cost of living that have resulted in clashes with the police. Two weeks ago, it turned into some of the worst riots in years. The interior minister has warned there is a very high risk of public disorder on Saturday and announced the deployment of around 70,000 police officers. Ongoing protests come in an increasingly tense political climate, with presidential elections just six months away, and far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading in the most recent opinion polls. Let's take a listen now to more of the Interior Minister's remarks. The pretext of Halloween night will not be considered a legitimate reason to cover one's face in public in order to cause public disorder. There is no ambiguity about this. We have issued instructions to that effect to all of our personnel. So now, the The calls for public gatherings in the evening suggest that the 31st of October carries a very high risk of public disorder, and also because of gatherings taking place during the day, which will very likely continue into the evening. So it is therefore an extremely atypical day. To the public. To discuss this further, we can bring in Rochelle Ferguson-Bouyaie from our International Affairs Desk. Rochelle, it's great to see you. So we heard the Interior Minister speaking there. He's warning that there could be a high risk of... of public disorder this weekend. Why is he so worried about that? Well, look, there are several reasons. Of course, those images of looting and rioting that we saw on the 17th of October, images that went around the world, those images will be firmly on the mind of authorities wanting to avoid that at all costs. Now, we saw a protest last week on the 24th of October. ...reasonably successful if you compare them to what happened on the 17th. The government says about 410,000 people were out in the streets. There was violence, but of course it was nothing compared to what we saw on the 17th. When it comes to why the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nunez, has spoken about this high risk of... You know, public disorder. It's because one of the reasons is social media. Now, they say that they've been monitoring. They've detected a number of calls on social media from far left radical groups, some more radicalized yellow vest groups who are calling for people to, you know, carry out a revolution on the 31st, Saturday evening, a revolution on the streets. And one could imagine that that could lead to chaos. Now, it's worth saying that the interior minister has banned those protests. But of course, here in France... And I feel when you begin to... Ban protest in certain areas that you, of course, subject to criticism straight away. People saying that, you know, this is more of, you know, a move towards, you know, a radical response from the government. Every citizen should have the right to protest. That is already facing some kind of backlash. So social media is one. A second would be, let's remember those meetings with Laurent Nunez this week between him and student unions. A lot of the mood that came out of there was disappointment. In fact, students say that... Nunez hadn't listened to their demands. They'd spoken specifically about four weeks of mobilisation on the streets and the police response to that, which was seen as unprecedented in terms of the violence that some of the students suffered. So there is a real feeling that the government is still not hearing the concerns of students on the street. Now, that is not just what we're saying here at France 24. The UN this week, experts have spoken about unjustifiable acts by the French authorities or French security. The government is walking a very fine line between, of course, stopping these dangerous acts by some marginal groups, but also ensuring that the police don't overstep the mark. We know that some of the young people have suffered kind of irreversible injuries over those protests. So it's a juggling act there, as we've said before. And just finally, I'll finish up with the very tense political backdrop here in France. Of course, elections just six months away. We know that whatever polls you look at right now, the leader of the of the far right, Marine Le Pen, looks like she would win. Of course, they had just polled the election. It hasn't been played yet. You have, at the same time, a great deal of criticism from the government levelled at the left here, notably La France Insoumise or France Unbowed, as it's called. So a lot of criticism towards them for stoking the tensions between young people and encouraged them to go out the street. All is to say that the atmosphere here currently is quite electric and that is one of the reasons that Laurent Nunez will be warned against a high risk of public disorder on Saturday. And Rochelle, what is the government proposing to try and limit the possibility of public disorder? Well, look, they've had to be swift about this. Demonstrations, of course, will be allowed because, you know, it's a citizen's right to do so. But they will not be allowed in city centres where that risk, again, this public disorder risk is seen to be high. And the government just reiterating that they will not tolerate excess. We've mentioned it, 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, of course, the group which is linked to the army, if you will, on the streets, controlling what is happening there. That was a similar figure that we saw last week that appeared to have worked. Certainly that has been increased drastically since the 17th of October and the police forces were out then. Security measures strengthened. Particularly looking at shop owners, how that they can protect their businesses, because we know that millions of euros worth of damage happened on the 17th of October. So police say they are setting up different strategies to ensure that shop owners, business owners are not going to be facing the same kind of looting that they did then. Monitoring, we spoke about it, of social media. What are far right groups saying? What are far left groups saying? What are the meeting points that could potentially be explosive during a protest that we're going to see? And again, this issue has been not only are they monitoring social media, but they're also issuing warnings to these groups, both on the far left and on the far right, to not overstep the mark in Saturday's protests, Catherine. Well, Rochelle, I guess we'll find out tomorrow if the measures end up being enough. Thank you so much. That's Rochelle Ferguson-Bouyaie from our International Affairs desk.