The next nationwide day of protest is set for Saturday, 31 October. That date is also Halloween, and the interior ministry was worried about the combination well before the weekend. Meanwhile the dockers have taken their own anger to the ports, and a quieter conflict has moved into the courtrooms.
Why Halloween worries the interior minister
On Thursday, 29 October, Laurent Nuñez wrote to every prefect. He warned that "from early evening until late into the night, the risk of urban violence is very high". According to the letter, intelligence services had found many social-media calls for gatherings in city centres and public squares, using Halloween as the pretext. He asked for a "powerful, responsive and agile" operation, with leave cancelled and measures that could go as far as curfews, and 70,000 police officers and gendarmes are being mobilised.
To foreign readers, a pumpkin festival may seem an odd thing to fear. In France, though, Halloween night has a history of trouble. In 2018 a member of parliament described how 13 cars, about twenty bins and pieces of street furniture were burned in and around Rennes in a single night. She noted that the festival had for several years been an occasion for urban violence there and elsewhere. That year's unrest also reached Réunion. So the government now faces two risks at once: a date that already draws restless teenagers, and a movement that began among teenagers.
The ministry's response is to push the protests to the edges of cities. Prefects will authorise marches not "in city centres, but rather in peripheral areas". The Yellow Vests had asked to march from Bastille to Concorde in Paris, and that request was denied.
Why the dockers matter
On Friday, 30 October, a 24-hour strike called by the CGT ports and docks federation was set to shut down France's ports. The union's leader, Tony Hautbois, predicted the ports would be "95% at a standstill". That figure is believable because the union represents 95% of the dockers who load and unload cargo. Few groups of workers in France can stop part of the economy so completely and so quickly.
The reasons for the strike go beyond prices. The dockers oppose the "militarisation" of port facilities, which they say is driven by the European Commission, and the direction of the Lecornu budget, which they say destroys "our systems of solidarity". The call started with the European Dockworkers Council, and unions in Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany and other countries were invited to join. The ports were also called to strike on 5 November. Two separate causes, the cost of living and Europe's rearmament, now share the same picket lines.
The courtroom front
The government's tough line on arrests is now reaching the courts, mostly through comparution immédiate, France's fast-track trial for people brought straight from police custody. In Nancy on 26 October, three students aged 18 to 21 were charged in connection with 17 October. Two were sentenced to five months in prison, served under electronic tag, partly for criminal conspiracy. One of their lawyers called the ruling one "rarely seen, even in fast-track trials". None of the three had a criminal record. In Montpellier, a young man said to have been beaten by far-right vigilantes on 24 October will remain in pre-trial detention until 2 December. He had filed a complaint over the assault.
Students are now organising around this. A new regional student coordination, formed on 19 October with 98 delegates from 32 Île-de-France campuses, called a march on 29 October to La Santé prison in Paris. It was demanding the right to protest and an amnesty for everyone prosecuted. This changes what the movement is about. The young people who began by protesting about school conditions are now also protesting about how the state has punished them for protesting.
The next nationwide day of protest is set for Saturday, 31 October. That date is also Halloween, and the interior ministry was worried about the combination well before the weekend. Meanwhile the dockers have taken their own anger to the ports, and a quieter conflict has moved into the courtrooms.
Why Halloween worries the interior minister
On Thursday, 29 October, Laurent Nuñez wrote to every prefect. He warned that "from early evening until late into the night, the risk of urban violence is very high". According to the letter, intelligence services had found many social-media calls for gatherings in city centres and public squares, using Halloween as the pretext. He asked for a "powerful, responsive and agile" operation, with leave cancelled and measures that could go as far as curfews, and 70,000 police officers and gendarmes are being mobilised.
To foreign readers, a pumpkin festival may seem an odd thing to fear. In France, though, Halloween night has a history of trouble. In 2018 a member of parliament described how 13 cars, about twenty bins and pieces of street furniture were burned in and around Rennes in a single night. She noted that the festival had for several years been an occasion for urban violence there and elsewhere. That year's unrest also reached Réunion. So the government now faces two risks at once: a date that already draws restless teenagers, and a movement that began among teenagers.
The ministry's response is to push the protests to the edges of cities. Prefects will authorise marches not "in city centres, but rather in peripheral areas". The Yellow Vests had asked to march from Bastille to Concorde in Paris, and that request was denied.
Why the dockers matter
On Friday, 30 October, a 24-hour strike called by the CGT ports and docks federation was set to shut down France's ports. The union's leader, Tony Hautbois, predicted the ports would be "95% at a standstill". That figure is believable because the union represents 95% of the dockers who load and unload cargo. Few groups of workers in France can stop part of the economy so completely and so quickly.
The reasons for the strike go beyond prices. The dockers oppose the "militarisation" of port facilities, which they say is driven by the European Commission, and the direction of the Lecornu budget, which they say destroys "our systems of solidarity". The call started with the European Dockworkers Council, and unions in Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany and other countries were invited to join. The ports were also called to strike on 5 November. Two separate causes, the cost of living and Europe's rearmament, now share the same picket lines.
The courtroom front
The government's tough line on arrests is now reaching the courts, mostly through comparution immédiate, France's fast-track trial for people brought straight from police custody. In Nancy on 26 October, three students aged 18 to 21 were charged in connection with 17 October. Two were sentenced to five months in prison, served under electronic tag, partly for criminal conspiracy. One of their lawyers called the ruling one "rarely seen, even in fast-track trials". None of the three had a criminal record. In Montpellier, a young man said to have been beaten by far-right vigilantes on 24 October will remain in pre-trial detention until 2 December. He had filed a complaint over the assault.
Students are now organising around this. A new regional student coordination, formed on 19 October with 98 delegates from 32 Île-de-France campuses, called a march on 29 October to La Santé prison in Paris. It was demanding the right to protest and an amnesty for everyone prosecuted. This changes what the movement is about. The young people who began by protesting about school conditions are now also protesting about how the state has punished them for protesting.
Sources