Shops and restaurants in central Paris were boarded up, the world-famous Louvre and Musee d’Orsay were closed and a curfew was in place for parts of the French capital ahead of hundreds of demonstrations planned across the country.
Weeks of protests by high school students over learning conditions sparked a movement that has since spread nationwide, fuelled by broader anger over the rising cost of living.
But some of the worst urban violence in years exploded on the sidelines of the demonstrations a week ago, which saw more than half a million people turn out.
About 70,000 security personnel will be deployed on Saturday, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, while Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned late on Friday that “the threat” of violence “remains high”.
The protests have come at a critical moment for France six months ahead of elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron, with a new poll underlining far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as the frontrunner and suggesting her position has been strengthened by the latest events.
Thousands of people yelling anti-fascist slogans marched in the French city of Orleans early on Saturday against a congress by far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party there, AFP journalists saw.
“Macron resign. Le Pen in prison,” the crowd yelled, while carrying placards that read “The Youth say ‘screw you’ to the National Rally” and “Hotter than fascists”.
Police fired teargas Saturday to disperse some 150 people protesting in the southeastern French city of Lyon, in an area banned to all demonstrations.
Police fired several teargas grenades to clear the group protesting near a university faculty and the city’s police station as part of nationwide rallies.
Macron and his government have sought to draw a line between the legitimate demands of protesters and the looting, burning and ransacking that erupted on the sidelines of demonstrations last Saturday.
Courts have already sent 217 people, half of them first-time offenders, to prison over the events on Saturday, officials said.
Earlier a police helicopter could be seen flying over the city, with security forces patrolling and armoured vehicles and riot police vans parked nearby. Shops were boarded up, with private security guards in front of some. Calls to defy the bans on protests in the city centre had circulated on social media. (AFP)