France mobilizes 70,000 police for a new protest day

France mobilizes 70,000 police for a new protest day

About 70,000 police and civil guards will be mobilized for the new day of social protest scheduled for Saturday in France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced.

© LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images


29/10/2026
by

Lusa

Cerca of 70 thousand police and civil guards will be mobilized for the new social challenge day scheduled for Saturday in France, an “exceptional device” that will remain, today the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, announced.

 

The secondment of this “exceptional device” is due to the fact that the day presents “a very high risk of disturbances of public order”, he added.

The demonstrations against the high cost of living brought together hundreds of thousands of people in the country on 17 and 24 October, with episodes of violence, acts of vandalism and numerous looting, especially in Paris and Marseille, on the margins of the October 17 protests.

At the time, the French Minister of the Interior even presented his resignation and made a ‘mea culpa’, recognizing a “loss of control” in some cities, but the President, Emmanuel Macron, did not accept it.

The security scheme implemented on 24 October to protect shops and shopping centres, adopted in response to “many calls for looting on social networks, will be maintained and strengthened,” Nuñez said at a press conference.

The demonstrations will be allowed, but “not in the centers of the cities, where there is the risk of disturbances of public order”, the minister continued.

“We will not tolerate any excess,” he warned, promising “extreme firmness.”.

At the same time, “many calls for concentrations” were detected on social networks on Saturday night, to celebrate Halloween, “proceeding from ultra-left groups, extreme radicalized left, and some Internet sites linked to radicalized yellow vests” in “many cities of France”.

These convenings are accompanied by “messages that encourage the revolution to trigger an insurrection” and that “incite, in a very clear way, to the practice of serious disturbances”, such as “pillars and acts of vandalism”, he said.

“ These concentrations will be prohibited by the mayors,” the minister said.

In addition, Halloween will not be considered “a legitimate reason to hide your face in public spaces, to commit attacks on public order,” he warned.

“October 31st presents (...) a very high risk of public order disturbances” and “has, in many respects, an atypical character,” said Laurent Nuñez.

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Lusa 18:15 – 29/10/2026

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