France is bracing for more street unrest next weekend after a huge security operation helped contain nationwide demonstrations on Saturday. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Monday that authorities expect further disturbances during demonstrations planned for October 31, telling BFM TV plainly: clearly, yes. Halloween evening is traditionally always a bit lively, he added, and officials expect it to be complicated again. The warning sets up a tense week for a government that has been rattled by weeks of protests.
A Saturday contained, not ended
The interior ministry deployed 70,000 police for Saturday’s demonstrations, which unions called to denounce the high cost of living and public services. Nunez said the huge police presence prevented a repeat of the violence seen nine days earlier, when unrest engulfed dozens of cities and raised fears that the state had lost control of the streets. Police arrested 1,435 people nationwide during Saturday’s demonstrations, a figure that shows both the scale of the mobilisation and the scale of the response. The movement has grown far beyond its initial student discontent, drawing in trade unions and yellow vest activists known for mass demonstrations against economic pressures including high fuel costs.
A new and worrying pattern
Nunez also pointed to a new phenomenon that worries officials as much as the protests themselves. Organised far right gangs confronted far left activists in several cities, he said, arriving in organised formations in places such as Nice and Montpellier, officially to defend businesses but mainly, in his account, to target the ultra left movement. That confrontation between street factions adds a second conflict to the one between protesters and police, and it is the reason the minister’s Halloween warning carries weight. The October 31 demonstrations will test whether Saturday’s containment was a turning point or only a pause, and whether the government can keep two rival street movements apart while the underlying grievances over living costs remain unresolved.
