PARIS — France sent roughly 70,000 police and security officers into its cities Saturday for a fresh round of nationwide protests, a week after demonstrations over the cost of living were overtaken by some of the worst rioting and looting the country has seen in years.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the force would include elite units normally reserved for counterterrorism and hostage rescues, along with water cannon, armored vehicles, mounted officers, helicopters and drones. He said social media posts were circulating that urged violence and looting. The deployment is about one-fifth larger than last weekend, after questions about how well police were prepared.
Paris closed several of its best-known cultural sites for the day, including the Louvre, the Orsay Museum, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais, and the Art Basel fair called off its weekend program after only one public day. Shop owners near Place de la Republique, a flashpoint last weekend, boarded up windows during the week.
Cities also clamped down on marches. Paris police revoked a permit for a union march between the Bastille and Nation squares and offered a route along the southeastern edge of the city instead, which unions said they would ignore. Central Lyon is off-limits to demonstrators, and Marseille allowed just one union march as an exception to its ban. Human rights groups have criticized the restrictions as a threat to peaceful protest.
The movement began with high school students angry about teacher shortages and run-down buildings and spread into broader anger over prices and public services. Last Saturday, the town hall in Limoges was set on fire, and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said courts have since sent 217 people to prison, half of them with no prior record. President Emmanuel Macron met student representatives Friday, but they urged classmates to keep protesting until the government offers concrete proposals.
The unrest comes six months before France chooses Macron successor. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, seen as the frontrunner, is holding her National Rally party congress this weekend in Orleans, where authorities expect 20,000 to 30,000 counterprotesters and have barred them from the city center.
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