French authorities seek to ban or curb fresh protests

A Paris protest Thursday organised by students – who had held four weeks of protests before the Oct 17 rallies – went ahead with hundreds attending after a police ban was overturned by an emergency court injunction.

“The authorities are trying to make a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protesters,” a university student leader, Coppelia Moreau, said of that attempted ban and others being touted.

“What we are seeing is a government that doesn’t want any demonstrations at all. That goes against the right to demonstrate,” she told journalists.

Authorities on Thursday declared a ban on “all protests” in the southeastern city of Lyon on Saturday.

France’s third-biggest city suffered the looting of 200 to 300 shops last weekend and the torching of a tourist office in what its mayor described as hours of “chaos”.

Other cities, including Grenoble, Rouen, Le Havre and Toulon, issued bans on protests in their city centres.

In Paris, the city’s police said Thursday that the march planned for Saturday could be held in the east of the capital, starting at Bastille, but was banned from heading into the city centre, where shops and major public buildings are located.

The Yellow Vest movement organising the cost-of-living rallies along with unions said it did not agree with the order.

“We won’t sign off on it,” said Benjamin Ball, who runs an online map showing the planned locations of Saturday’s demonstrations.

Art Basel Paris, the capital’s biggest art fair, said it would shut this weekend, two days early, due to the protests.

France’s interior ministry said “20 per cent more” police would be deployed this coming Saturday than for last weekend.