With terror attacks
City remains on edge as host of climate talks
still fresh, France ramps up security for climate summit.
PARIS — French authorities have mounted one of the biggest security operations in the nation’s history for the United Nations climate change conference that opens near Paris on Monday.
The event, viewed by many as the most important environmental summit in years, has presented the French government with a major security predicament. Tens of thousands of participants are descending on the capital about two weeks after shooting and bombing attacks killed at least 130 people in Paris.
Nearly 150 world leaders, including President Barack Obama, are expected for the opening days of the talks that are scheduled to last two weeks. In addition to the main conference in Le Bourget, on the northern edge of Paris, dozens of side events are planned.
With at least two suspects still on the loose, Paris remains a city on edge. Islamic State, the extremist group that claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 rampage, has threatened more attacks.
But French President Francois Hollande and his ministers said any delay in talks would be a surrender to terrorism.
The conference will take place under a state of emergency. Some measure of the security challenges came Sunday when violence erupted between riot police and a group of several hundred protesters at a major square in Paris.
About 120,000 police and soldiers have fanned out across the country, an unprecedented deployment, officials say.
They include about 2,800 officers assigned to protect the U.N. conference. About 8,000 others are patrolling the country’s borders after France temporarily suspended its participation in an agreement providing for free movement within the European Union.
Stores in Paris were instructed to pull fireworks, household fuels and other flammable materials from their shelves during the conference.
Public demonstrations were banned under the state of emergency, causing friction with environmental groups that were forced to cancel a major march through central Paris on Sunday.
The emergency rules also gave law enforcement officials expanded authority to search buildings and detain people viewed as potential threats to public order, powers they used to place at least 24 activists under house arrest.
Juliet Rousseau, who coordinates a coalition of environmental and social justice groups known as Climat 21, questioned why climate protests were barred while Christmas markets and other large gatherings were allowed to proceed.
“All this makes us think that the state of emergency is being used as a way to shut us up,” she said.
Activists have vowed to find creative ways to press their demands for an ambitious deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help poorer countries cope with climate change.
On Sunday, they lined up thousands of pairs of shoes on Paris’ Place de la Republique to represent people who could not march. Among the rows of loafers, boots and sandals were a pair of black lace-ups sent by Pope Francis and a pair of running shoes sent by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Later, activists chanting “Climate change is the real state of emergency” formed a human chain along the intended march route. Most dispersed peacefully around midday. But a few tried to force their way through police cordons, according to officials.
Police fired tear gas at protesters who hurled shoes, bottles and even candles at them. The violence took place at a square where Parisians have been leaving candles and flowers in memory of those who died on Nov. 13.
Hollande accused protesters of dishonoring the memory of those who died.
More than 200 people were arrested and 174 of them placed into custody, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters.
Watching from the sidelines, Parisian Benjamin Le Prince, 30, was furious.
“Look at all the candles and flowers they are throwing,” he said. “We already went through enough violence. We don’t need this.”
Others were more sympathetic.
“All these restrictions of liberty don’t only affect Islamist radicals,” said Patrick Creac’h, 60, who took part in the peaceful protest earlier in the day. “When you are 20 years old, you get angry.”
President Barack Obama paid a late night tribute at one of the sites of the terrorist attacks shortly after his arrival Sunday for the summit. His motorcade went to the Bataclan concert hall where he placed a single flower at a makeshift memorial and bowed his head in silence.