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France is deploying some 70,000 law-enforcement officers across the country on Saturday, October 24, while the Louvre and several other major Paris museums shut their doors — as authorities brace for renewed violence during planned cost-of-living protests. It is one of the largest domestic security mobilizations France has mounted in recent years.
What is closing and where
The Culture Ministry confirmed to the Associated Press that the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais will all be closed on Saturday. The ministry urged institutions under its authority to take every measure needed to ensure "visitor safety, staff protection and the preservation of artworks," according to The Hindu. Art Basel Paris, which features 211 international galleries at the Grand Palais, has cancelled its weekend programme entirely.
Why authorities expect trouble
Last weekend's demonstrations devolved into mayhem — fires set in the streets, public buildings stormed, shop windows smashed, looting and clashes with police — in what officials described as France's most violent unrest in years. Demonstrators plan to return to the streets on Saturday to denounce the high cost of living. Students, members of the CGT labour union and activists from the "yellow vest" movement, whose protests against social injustice shook France in 2018 and 2019, are all expected to join, Times Now reports.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the 70,000 police officers and gendarmes would be backed by helicopters, armored vehicles and water cannons, with elite police units protecting public buildings such as city halls in a "highly mobile" operation. "There have been numerous calls from radical far-left groups on social media to commit acts of violence and vandalism. There have also been renewed calls for looting," Nuñez said at a news conference, promising authorities would be "absolutely uncompromising" with anyone involved in violence. Some protests have already been banned in Lyon, Nice and Montpellier, though marches are still expected in Paris and Marseille.
A protest movement that keeps returning
This is not the first time cost-of-living anger has filled French streets this month. An earlier report on Europe's cost-of-living protests traced how demonstrations spread across France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal — and how France's unrest has repeatedly been the most volatile. October has been an unusually strained month for the country in other ways too, from the first human Shamonda virus case to Friday's deadly racist shooting near Paris.
Saturday will be the real test: whether the largest police deployment in years can keep a protest movement about the price of everyday life from tipping, once again, into the kind of violence that left Paris counting its broken windows last weekend. The museums, at least, are taking no chances.