Massive Demonstrations Continue in France
Featured image: Protests in Paris on October 24. Source: Daily Sun.
On October 24, the second Saturday in a row, around 800,000 people took to the streets all around France in around 300 different protests, in their ongoing struggles against high cost of living and bad living conditions, that grew out of the student protests.
Despite curfews and a massive police presence (70,000 according to the interior minister) demonstrations continued uninterrupted in cities all across the country. The mobilized police units reportedly included “anti-terrorist” special units in Paris, where barricades were put up after a big demonstration. Jeunesse Communiste (Communist Youth) has shared some first impressions of their participation in demonstrations around the country:
Reportedly barricades were also put up in Marseille and Lyon, among others, which are the second and third largest cities of the country, where they defied the orders of areas where protests were banned. In Nantes protesters broke through police lines to enter the city center. According to the interior minister, the clashes around the country resulted in at least 50 police injured.
As a result of the police violence there have already been further reports of a protester having his hand blown up by a grenade in Toulousse.
https://twitter.com/CerveauxNon/status/2114036647872327897
The French State also speaks of 1,314 arrests on Saturday alone. FSE (National Student Union) and Jeunesse Communiste (Communist Youth) have denounced some examples of how these arrests often take place – arbitrarily and violently, without even the possibility to inform others of their situation:
With none of the central demands being handled whatsoever, the protests still show no signs of slowing down, neither by the attempts of some supposed leaders to pacify them, nor by the massive police mobilization and violence. In addition to calls to maintain the protests in general, a new central day of mobilization was called for October 31.
