Thousands Protest Across Europe as Police Prepare for Possible Violence

Violence broke out in France on Saturday as left-wing protesters were filmed trampling on Israeli and US flags and throwing firebombs at police.

Clashes between demonstrators and officers erupted in Paris after the protest march reached its final destination.

Some protesters used hammers to loosen paving stones and hurl them at police. At least one incendiary device was also thrown toward security forces, who responded with tear gas.

Footage shared online appeared to show French riot police charging at protesters after a firebomb was thrown at them on a Paris street. In the same scenes, one demonstrator could be seen walking with a traffic cone over his head.

Elsewhere in France, left-wing demonstrators were filmed standing on the roof of what appeared to be a bus shelter. They stamped on US and Israeli flags before setting fire to a Star of David.

Thousands of young people took to the streets across France, Germany, Italy and Spain as police prepared for possible violence during the third weekend of protests.

Around 70,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed throughout France, while demonstrations in Paris were diverted to the outskirts of the capital.

Youth-led protests were also reported in Germany and Italy.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned there was a “very high risk” of disorder, particularly after nightfall on Halloween.

Police had arrested thousands of people after riots and looting marred protests that were otherwise largely peaceful on October 17 and October 24.

At Porte de Bagnolet on Paris’s eastern edge, several thousand people began gathering on Saturday afternoon behind a line of students who were due to lead the march hand in hand.

Security volunteers from the CGT, one of France’s biggest labor unions, monitored the front of the gathering as police assembled in nearby side streets.

The protesters’ grievances varied widely.

Different groups carried their own banners, including high school students opposing the university admissions system, climate activists and demonstrators angered by the rising cost of living.

Several Halloween costumes caught attention in the crowd, including a zombie version of Michael Jackson from Thriller, a pirate and Spider-Man.

Before the march began, protesters waited calmly, chanting and singing through megaphones.

Corentin Cabreux, a 21-year-old student, said he lives in a state-run student residence where ‘there are damp stains all along the bottom of my walls, whole sections peeling off, cockroaches everywhere, rats’.

He said he hoped Saturday’s protest would be festive in honor of Halloween, to counter the image of violence that has attached itself to France’s protests.

Police set curfew and other measures to avoid a repeat of violence

The rallies started last month as a movement of high school students protesting neglected buildings, teacher shortages and a university admissions system seen as unfair to disadvantaged students. 

Labour unions and others angry at President Emmanuel Macron joined in with a variety of demands.

While the vast majority of protesters have been peaceful, groups of troublemakers routinely target police with fireworks and projectiles. 

Some protests have degenerated into rioting and looting – including unrest on October 17 that appeared to take the government by surprise. 

Police have responded with tear gas, dispersion grenades, water cannons and other tactics that have resulted in severe injuries.

Mr Macron said that Saturday’s marches would stay out of city centers to protect shops. 

Police also barred entry to Place de la Republique and Les Halles from 11pm to 6am on Saturday and Sunday.

Unaccompanied minors face a separate 9pm curfew around the Champs-Elysees. 

A Paris court on Wednesday suspended an earlier curfew on minors as a serious and illegal infringement of freedom of movement.

Protests are also taking place in Germany, Italy and Spain.

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In Germany, a youth initiative called ‘Gen Z regelt’ – roughly ‘Gen Z’s got this’ – urged protests in some 30 cities ‘for education, health, climate protection and an affordable life’, and against any return of military conscription. 

Organisers said more than 180,000 people had signed up online.

Berlin police expected about 10,000 people at the Brandenburg Gate. Some shops on the Kurfuerstendamm boulevard boarded up their windows, although authorities said they were unaware of specific threats of violence. 

Protests were expected to begin in the early afternoon.

In Barcelona, Spain, Catalan police planned to activate their highest-level alert after an anonymous TikTok network called Blocus urged new gatherings. 

Rioting there last Saturday led to about 130 arrests, mostly of minors.

Italian police were on alert after clashes in Milan, Turin and Bologna, and calls to protest circulated on TikTok in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal.

The French have banned Halloween masks during anti-government protests across the country today as they predict yet another horror weekend of intense violence.

At least 4,000 people have been arrested during disturbances over the past month, with hundreds wounded.

On Saturday, French interior minister Laurent Nunez said more rioting, looting and arson was inevitable on a ‘high risk’ day when 70,000 police and gendarmes would be on the street.

He said ‘face-covering masks will not be allowed,’ despite the protests coinciding with Halloween, because there was ‘a very high risk of public disorder’.

Mr Nunez said police were aware of multiple social media calls for Halloween gatherings urging protesters ‘to spark a revolution’.

Many called for people to dress up and gather for ‘a night of darkness’.

Police meanwhile banned demonstrations in the centre of many cities including Paris, where a march will take place out on the eastern section of the ring road on Saturday.

Alain Di Crescenzo, the president of France’s chamber of commerce, said businesses were ‘extremely worried’, as many shops boarded up their windows.

‘Shopkeepers can’t wait for Saturday to be over,’ said Mr Di Crescenzo.

‘The information we have is that Halloween is not helping matters, because we’re going to have people wearing masks.’

The French authorities have acknowledged intelligence failures that enabled earlier clashes, and have attempted to reassert control by restricting demonstrations and imposing curfews.

The unrest followed weeks of demonstrations by high school students campaigning for the equivalent of around £9billion to be put into the education system.

But it has now mushroomed into a mass movement encompassing multiple groups, from trade unions to Black Bloc anarchists.

Left-wing politicians have been accused of stirring up trouble, while they say that paramilitary police units have provoked the crowds.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the presidential candidate for the France Unbowed party, said too many tear gas canisters had been fired at peaceful demonstrators.

He claimed: ‘It seems that confrontation is the very goal of this public-order strategy. It’s pathetic.’

Among those on the streets on Saturday were the infamous Yellow Vests – or Gilets Jaunes – who brought chaos to France at the start of President Emmanuel Macron’s time in office.

Opinion polls suggest Marine Le Pen, the far-Right National Rally candidate, could go head-to-head against Mr Mélenchon in the second round of the next presidential election in May.

She is currently appealing against a conviction for embezzling taxpayers’ cash from the European Parliament, so could become the first convicted criminal to enter the Élysée Palace.

Mr Macron will be forced to stand down, having served the maximum two terms allowed for a serving head of state in France.