All of France is holding its breath today for fear of a repeat of the violent conflict
The whole of France is holding its breath today for fear of a repeat of the violent clashes across the country in the face of the new demonstrations of the "Yellow Vest" movement. The fourth consecutive weekend of mobilizations is expected to be a "decisive moment" and "a turning point" for the future of the movement, according to French newspapers.
Paris looks like a city under siege. Shops, monuments, educational institutions, museums, will remain closed. The Opera House, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower are closed. The roads around the Arc de Triomphe are also closed and 40 metro stops are closed.
With the iron shutters down, the shops on the main avenues as well as in other strategic points of the city will remain closed. Typical is the image of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées with the shop windows covered with plywood tiles, two weeks before Christmas.
For today, many foreign embassies have advised nationals of their countries to be careful when traveling to Paris, or even better if they can postpone their trip.
The country's authorities are at the highest level of vigilance for the "4th Act" of the mobilizations of this mass movement, which while started as a protest for the increase of fuel has developed as a wave of controversy against the policy of President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. .
From the air, a large number of drones will be at the disposal of the police. From the ground, 12 gendarmes of the gendarmerie, capable of dismantling the roadblocks, took up positions around the Elysium from seven in the morning. Around 8.000 police and gendarmes are forecast for Paris, which, unlike last Saturday, will be less static and more agile. There are 89.000 law enforcement agencies mobilized across the country.
So far, 278 arrests of would-be participants in today's mobilizations carried out by the French police have reached XNUMX. These are mainly people who arrived in the capital from other areas and in whose possession masks, slingshots, hammers, or even pieces of paved streets were found.
By appointment at some strategic points in the capital, train stations (St. Lazare) or doors of Paris, such as the swimsuit (porte Maillot), have already arrived by dawn the first "yellow vests", which were welcomed by police , in order to allow them to continue their journey towards the center.