France orders tens of thousands of police to streets ahead of renewed protests

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The president ordered local authorities on Thursday to allow only trade union demonstrations this weekend, and forbid the kind of mass student-led protests that have rocked France for weeks.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said helicopters, armoured vehicles and water cannon would back up riot police.

“There have been numerous calls from radical far-left groups on social media to commit acts of violence and vandalism. There have also been renewed calls for looting,” he claimed.

Mr Nunez warned the police would adopt “a very firm approach to making arrests, and there will be legal consequences.”

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu held meetings with trade union leaders on Wednesday and political parties on Thursday but left and labour movement leaders say nothing was on the table.

Union federation CGT leader Sophie Binet said on leaving the talks that Mr Lecornu had proposed nothing at all: “there was no consideration of our demands…

“The time has come to move the mobilisation up a gear — from [November 5, when most unions have announced strikes and protests] strike action must take over,” she said.

French Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel said: “The French have been making concrete claims for months and the prime minister called us in for a lesson in law enforcement. In order to resolve the crisis it is urgent to announce measures on the cost of living.”

The arrest of 7,000 minors since the protests began was “unprecedented since World War II,” he warned.

And France Unbowed (LFI) general co-ordinator Manuel Bompard said the PM had “wasted the country’s time.

“At no time did he enter into the specific debate about the demands of the youth, about the demands of the country, about the anger or about social suffering.”

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, citing public transport shutdowns in Marseille and other cities and curfews across many urban areas, said France was “tipping into another world” and Mr Macron was “destroying the republican state.”

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