French Police Fire Tear Gas in Lyon as Paris Cops Seize Weapons

French police used tear gas against protesters on Saturday as authorities tightened security in cities across the country, seeking to prevent a repeat of the violence that followed last week’s demonstrations over the rising cost of living.

In Lyon, officers dispersed roughly 150 people after they made a brief attempt to block a road near the city centre, an area where protests had been prohibited.

“The police are extremely mobile. They move in and break up marches before they have even started,” said a 21-year-old student who took part in the protest.

Police elsewhere confiscated weapons and gas masks before the demonstrations began, while shopkeepers prepared for possible unrest. Around 70,000 riot officers were deployed nationwide.

The authorities are under intense pressure to restore order after being accused of losing control in several cities last weekend. They are also facing questions over crowd-control methods after a number of teenagers suffered serious injuries.

Last weekend’s protests descended into violence in parts of France. Town halls were targeted, stores were looted, and fires damaged Lyon’s tourist information centre and the town hall in Limoges.

Police appeared outnumbered as the unrest grew beyond initial anger over school conditions, drawing in people frustrated by the cost-of-living crisis and broader dissatisfaction with the government.

About 135 people had been arrested across France by Saturday.

In Paris, officers seized a significant quantity of “prohibited materials” ahead of the weekend protests, including knives, gas masks, an angle grinder, a katana, batons and goggles.

Several arrests were also made. The Paris prefecture said officers had carried out “massive checks” to discourage people with “bad intentions” from travelling to the capital.

Members of the gilets jaunes, or yellow vest movement, joined students and trade unionists on the streets. President Emmanuel Macron, however, announced this week that authorities would take a tougher approach to permitted protests.

He said only demonstrations organised by recognised trade unions will be allowed to go ahead today, and cities including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier have banned protests from taking place today completely.

Meanwhile in Orléans, up to 40,000 people are expected to gather to protest against the country’s hard-right party Rassemblement National, which has a two-day conference in the city.

Shopkeepers have boarded up their premises in Paris and other cities, while some areas have been in partial curfews.

Major tourist attractions including the Louvre, Orsay and Picasso museums are all closed, while a home game for PSG has been moved until Monday and a number of metro stations are shut. 

Regardless of the crackdown by Mr Macron, hundreds of demonstrations are still expected today, with a website associated with the gilets jaunes listing 500 protests and 200 other actions. 

In Orléans, shops were boarded up, roads sealed off and 3,000 police and gendarmes deployed as the city, 70 miles south of Paris, braced for potential trouble. 

Protesters descended on the city early in the morning as the RN’s Marine Le Pen and her party president Jordan Bardella hold a two-day congress this weekend to officially launch their campaign to capture the French presidency next year.

The protest march, originally due to start outside the city’s Gothic cathedral, has been rerouted away from the historic centre of Orléans, while riot police have been deployed in force to keep the two rival camps apart. 

In Paris, soldiers from an anti-terrorism military unit patrolled the Champs-Elysees avenue while police vans circled the Arc de Triomphe, looking to protect some of the capital’s most famous sites from any repeat of the unrest that shook France last week. 

Police said more than 100 protesters and residents were injured in Paris last Saturday. Authorities have not released a nationwide injury tally. About 2,400 people were arrested across France that day.

Officers have also faced criticism after a 17-year-old girl lost an eye while participating in a protest in Mulhouse last Saturday, while a 17-year-old boy lost a hand in Saint-Etienne. Other teenagers have suffered disabling injuries during weeks of high school blockades and street demonstrations.

And today, an investigation was opened after a photographer was severely injured in the leg by a police grenade in central Paris last Saturday.

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French police forces are equipped with batons, tear gas, sound grenades and foam-round launchers, as well as riot shields equipped with powerful strobe lights designed to disorient protesters.

‘Intermediate-force weapons are defensive response tools that allow law enforcement officers to respond to a threat in a graduated and proportionate manner,’ French National Police said in a statement.

But critics, including families of injured teenagers, say the police have been too heavy-handed.

Some have called for bans on foam-round launchers, tear gas and stun grenades, echoing demands made by human rights groups since the violent 2018 gilets jaunes – ‘yellow vest’ – protests.

Earlier this month, Amnesty International called for a permanent ban on all stun grenades, saying they are designed to shock, disorient and sow panic, and that some can cause permanent hearing loss and life-changing injuries from blasts and shrapnel.

The use of such weapons reflects a broader shift in French policing toward keeping officers at a distance from protesters, said Jean-Marie Godard, an author specializing in France’s internal security.

In the early 2000s, France’s conservative government moved away from community policing, which emphasized foot patrols and engagement with residents, toward specialized riot-control units.

People across France’s political spectrum regret abandoning the community policing model, Mr Godard said.

French policing today differs from that in many other European countries, according to Laura Keesmann, a sociologist at the University of Antwerp who led a wide-ranging comparative study of policing methods in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden. In the other countries studied, police often engage directly with demonstrators, sometimes mingling with crowds to defuse tensions, she said.

‘That is just really, really not the case in France,’ she said. ‘There’s much more of an authoritarian way of policing.’

Ms Keesmann stressed, however, that French police face unusually militant and sometimes violent protesters.

On the eve of last Saturday’s protests, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said his instructions were ‘very clear: the police and gendarmes should be able to use the entirety of the intermediate weapons at their disposal’.

France has more than 250,000 national police officers and gendarmes. Police generally operate in cities, while gendarmes usually cover rural areas and smaller towns. Both forces fall under the Interior Ministry, which said 997 officers and gendarmes were injured during Saturday’s unrest, seven of them seriously.

Mr Godard said protest movements have become increasingly decentralised as labor unions have lost influence over demonstrations, drawing a wider range of participants, including radical groups.

French authorities have blamed much of the recent violence on far-Left radicals, accusing them of orchestrating clashes with police and targeting public buildings. Others took advantage of the unrest to loot businesses, authorities said.

While protests in France have claimed most international attention, Milan is among the many other European cities where protests are also scheduled Saturday, from Portugal to Albania.

Premier Giorgia Meloni announced a raft of measures, including sending an additional 500 soldiers to Milan, and tougher penalties for minors, who police said made up a large part of the violent protesters.

The 500 soldiers come in addition to hundreds already stationed there, and will support about 5,000 police and other law enforcement personnel. 

Authorities are conducting drone surveillance, checks at railway stations, rapid-response units and online monitoring for potential calls to violence. 

Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala has said he is concerned about a repeat of violence this weekend and expressed support for the deployment of more soldiers.

Rioters last weekend smashed their way into stores, targeting sneakers, athletic wear and sporting goods on streets that run off the city’s central Duomo square.

Officials said security measures on Saturday would extend beyond the city center amid concerns protesters could move into other neighborhoods to evade heavily policed areas.

Valter Mazzetti, secretary general of the Fsp police union, told The Associated Press that soldiers could provide immediate reinforcements, but not resolve police staffing shortages, noting that managing demonstrations requires specialized police training.

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said in a social media post that the troops lacked key tools available for public-order operations, and that soldiers were only recently allowed to use plastic restraint ties and only in areas around train stations, not throughout the city. They are not authorized to carry pepper spray or tasers, he said.

Milan police say last week’s violence and looting involved about 2,000 very young protesters, a large number of whom were ‘naturalized, second-generation Italians,’ alongside foreign nationals. Over two days, police arrested 45 people, 34 of them minors.

Milan’s welfare councilor Lamberto Bertolé told the AP that more investigation is needed to understand the backgrounds and motives of the young people who joined the looting.

‘Many young people increasingly lack a sense of belonging and prospects for the future. Part of our society feels excluded, amid social and economic inequalities,’ said Bertolé, a member of the center-left Democratic Party.

Security was also heightened in Rome, where authorities locked down luxury shopping streets and stepped up controls around the Circus Maximus and Piazza del Popolo ahead of planned demonstrations, including one by right-wing students.

An anti-war march is scheduled to start in the early afternoon at the central Piazza della Repubblica, and there are concerns over possible infiltration by violent groups.

Organizers sought to distance themselves from potential unrest, urging participants to keep their faces uncovered and hands visible.

Aside from Rome and Milan, demonstrations have been called in at least seven other cities. The newly formed ‘October 17 Movement’ has been the main driver alongside student federations, grassroots trade unions, and anti-war coalitions.