France cost-of-living protests November 7 mobilization, Digi Mart USA News (France): The yellow vest coordination and youth organizations are calling for new actions this Saturday, marking the fourth weekend of their movement against the high cost of living, which began on November 17. According to the publisher, around 70,000 police officers and gendarmes have again been mobilized nationwide.
After three weekends of protests, yellow vest activists, unions and high school students are again calling on people to demonstrate across France on Saturday, November 7, against the rising cost of living. Several city-center demonstration routes have been banned in multiple locations, according to the report.
The prefecture of the Marne issued an order banning any undeclared demonstration in central Reims. Similar restrictions were reported in Toulouse, Valence, Poitiers and Caen, where several gatherings supported by the CGT union have circulated on social media.
In Paris, the yellow vest coordination has maintained its call for a rally at Place de la Concorde, which the Paris police prefecture has banned. The group has refused to join an authorized intersyndical march between Place de la République and Place de la Nation, organized by regional union federations and a youth union coalition.
Benjamin Ball, a member of the coordination, told reporters: “We will go to Concorde at 2 p.m. and stay there until 7 p.m.” He promised a “family-friendly” and “peaceful” demonstration.
The security arrangement has been “renewed,” with 70,000 police and gendarmes mobilized across the country. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said calls circulating on social media included appeals to violence against security forces, attacks on public buildings and shops with looting, and calls for revolution or insurrection by ultra-left and radical far-left movements.
He also referred to calls for blockades of traffic routes in the morning and of key arteries, and said the risk was “exactly the same” as on previous Saturdays.
Nuñez said 25 Centaure armored gendarmerie vehicles and 15 water cannon units would be deployed nationwide, along with drones and helicopters. Preventive checks will be carried out on road traffic, rail lines and train stations.
He said prefects had issued bans on demonstrations in city centers, which would be systematically protected. He warned that anyone engaging in looting or rioting would be confronted firmly, while saying that peaceful demonstrators would be supervised so that their right to protest could be exercised normally.
