French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said 89,000 members of the security forces would be deployed nationwide on Saturday, including 8,000 in Paris, where armored vehicles will also be out on the streets.
“We are facing people who are not here to protest, but to smash and we want to have the means to not give them a free rein,” Philippe told TF1 television’s evening news program on Thursday, revising an earlier figure of 65,000 forces.
Philippe said about 10 armored vehicles belonging to the gendarmerie would also be used, the first time since 2005 when riots broke out in Paris’ suburbs.
Around 200 French high schools were blocked or disrupted Thursday by students protesting a raft of education overhauls, on a fourth day of action called to coincide with anti-government demonstrations which have rocked the country in recent weeks.
Dozens of people wearing face masks threw Molotov cocktails, torched trash bins and clashed with police in several cities during violent protests ahead of a call for nationwide demonstrations on Friday.
"The situations are quite varied, with total or partial blockages, barricades to control access, burning pallets," an education ministry official told AFP.
"We're the ones who are going to eventually have to pay higher fuel prices," said Ines, one of around 150 high school students demonstrating in the southern Paris suburb of Cachan.
The "yellow vest" protests began on November 17 in opposition to rising fuel taxes, but they have since ballooned into a broad challenge to Macron's pro-business agenda and style of governing.
The government announced Wednesday it would cancel planned increases in fuel tax due to take effect in January in a bid to appease the mostly low-income protesters from small-town and rural France.
"With the yellow vests as a pretext, we're seeing all sorts of individuals joining with people demonstrating in good faith, including students, and this is leading to serious violence," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told BFM television.
The main farmers' union said Wednesday that its members would hold demonstrations every day next week.
Two truck driver unions have also called an indefinite sympathy strike from Sunday night, while blockades at fuel depots have caused shortages in Brittany, Normandy, and southeast regions of France.
Officials fear more violence this weekend after organisers called for new demonstrations, saying Macron's decision to cancel fuel tax increases and other concessions were not enough.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told senators Thursday that "exceptional measures" would be in place on Saturday in addition to the deployment of 65,000 security forces across France.
On Thursday a yellow-vest representative, Benjamin Cauchy, called on Macron to meet a delegation of protesters Friday to help calm a situation that he said had brought the country "to the brink of insurrection and civil war."
Despite last weekend's violence, attributed by many to vandals intent on rioting, public support for the yellow vests has remained stable, with an opinion poll this week showing 72 percent backed the movement.
Mr Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s popularity ratings hit new lows as the “yellow vest” protests gathered speed, according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll. The young centrist has been hit by a wave of popular discontent over a planned eco-tax rise, which quickly morphed into a broader rebuke of his aloof leadership style and tough policies. Mr Macron’s satisfaction rating fell to 23 per cent in November, down six percentage points on the previous month, the poll for Paris Match and Sud Radio showed.
Mr Philippe’s approval rating fell by 10 percentage points to 26 per cent.
Seventy-six per cent of those interviewed said they were “dissatisfied” with Mr Macron’s actions as president, with half stressing they “totally disapproved” of his actions.
The 40-year-old leader’s score now matches the low recorded by his socialist predecessor François Hollande in late 2013, according to Paris Match. Mr Hollande is widely considered to be the least popular head of state in modern French history.
Now BFMTV says left-wing parties within the French parliament have agreed to discuss a no confidence vote against Mr Macron’s government. The French Communist Party and the Socialist Party are leading the rebellion.
First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure wrote on Twitter: “We’ve decided to work together to file a no confidence vote [to the government] next Monday. During the coming days, we will seek to increase the number of signatories. We have to show that other ways are possible.”
French authorities will close dozens of museums, tourism sites and shops on Saturday, including the Eiffel Tower and Louvre, fearing a recurrence of last week's violence in Paris, officials said on Thursday.
"We cannot take the risk when we know the threat," Culture Minister Franck Riester told RTL radio, adding that far-right and far-left agitators were planning to hijack rallies by "yellow vest" protesters in Paris.
He said the Louvre museum, Orsay museum, the two operas, and the Grand Palais were among the sites that would be closed a week after rioters looted and defaced the Arc de Triomphe.
The Eiffel Tower will also be closed on Saturday due to the protests, the site's operator SETE said, warning that it could not ensure security for visitors.
No comments:
Post a Comment