Ring of steel to subdue rioters across France
FRANCE is to deploy an “exceptional” number of security force officers around the country on Saturday as the government braces for yellow-vest protests of “great violence” in Paris, despite making key concessions.
Tourists have been urged not to cancel their trips to the capital, despite the closure of about a dozen cultural sites, including the Eiffel Tower, due to security fears.
But police urged shops and restaurants on the Champs-elysees to shut on Saturday to avoid fresh damage after last weekend’s riots, the worst in decades.
Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, told senators that an unspecified number of additional extra forces would be deployed on top of the 65,000 security officers already in place for the protests in Paris and elsewhere.
An official in Emmanuel Macron’s office warned that intelligence suggested some protesters intended to be in Paris “to smash and to kill.”
President Macron has said he will scrap the green fuel tax rise that sparked the movement, but protesters’ demands have widened. Trouble erupted yesterday in more than 200 high schools across the country, with students setting fire to waste bins and a car in Nantes.
Farmers and truckers are threatening to strike from Sunday and many “yellow vest” groups are calling for an “Act IV” of unrest.
If politics in Britain look febrile and uncertain, we should console ourselves that we are not alone. Indeed, compared to what is happening in parts of the Continent, they are positively benign. France is braced for another weekend of upheaval and violence if the so-called gilets jaunes (or yellow vests) protesters fail to be placated by Emmanuel Macron’s capitulation over fuel tax rises.
Last Saturday saw some of the worst rioting in Paris for 50 years, as hardline thugs joined otherwise peaceful demonstrators to smash up shops and torch cars. Many come from the Left- and Right-wing groups in France that seek to supplant President Macron. Their grievances go well beyond fuel taxes and they are filling the political vacuum left by the implosion of the En Marche party, which seems merely to have been a vehicle to put Mr Macron into the Elysée Palace, rather than a bona-fide political movement.
In Germany, the fight to succeed Angela Merkel is reaching its climax, with the German Chancellor stepping down today as leader of the CDU party and three candidates after the post. The winner could become chancellor when Mrs Merkel relinquishes office in 2021, but they will have to contend with the rise of far-left and Right parties which, together with the Greens, currently have 40 per cent support in the polls. In Italy, populists are in power and threatening a stand-off with the EU over the country’s budget; in eastern Europe, Hungary and Poland are in dispute with Brussels over immigration policy. Remainers outside Westminster, sporting their “I love EU” badges as though the bloc were an oasis of stability compared to Britain, should take a closer look at what is going on over the Channel.