Tourist attractions in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, are to close on Saturday amid fears that planned anti-government protests will turn violent.
Across France, 89,000 police officers will be on duty, 8,000 of which will be in Paris, and armoured vehicles will also be deployed in the capital, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has announced.
Police have told shops and restaurants on Paris’s famous Champs-Elysees to shut and some museums will also be closed for the day, including the Louvre and Orsay. After the Arc de Triomphe was damaged last Saturday, the Grand Palais complex and opera houses will also close tomorrow. The operator of the Eiffel Tower has said it is impossible to ensure ‘adequate security conditions’ tomorrow, despite the additional police presence.
A similar organised protest by the so-called ‘yellow vests’ in Paris last Saturday descended into riots and police fear the same this weekend.
The protests were sparked by fuel tax increases, which the French government has promised to scrap, but discontent with President Macron’s social reform policies has spread across the country and activists from both the far left and the far right are expected to hijack tomorrow’s protest.
An official with the interior ministry told AFP news agency authorities were braced for ‘significant violence’.
A series of football matches have also been postponed on Saturday. They include those between Paris and Montpellier, Monaco and Nice, Toulouse and Lyon, and Saint-Etienne and Marseille.
