“An unprecedented security device” according to the Minister of the Interior. Gérald Darmanin announced on Monday that “13,000 police and gendarmes” will be deployed throughout France to cover the demonstrations against the pension reform at the call for the inter-union meeting scheduled for Tuesday. 5,500 of them will be deployed in Paris, where the latest demonstration was particularly tense.
Condemnation of “ultra-left violence”
“I ask the police and the gendarmes not to give in to any provocation”, called the Interior Minister during a press conference organized in Place Beauvau, in a context in which the protesters and the police are passing responsibility for excesses, in particular during the demonstration on Thursday.
“We are not going to let the law of the strongest and the violence of the ultra-left take hold,” said the minister in this context.
During this last inter-union mobilization, 12,000 police and gendarmes were mobilized throughout France. The first demonstrations in January required the deployment of some 10,000 members of the police. The Minister of the Interior also announced that “since March 16, 891 police officers and gendarmes have been injured in the context of violent actions directed against them.”
“More than 1,000 radical elements” are expected by Tuesday
Following the appearance of a large black bloc at the Parisian demonstration on Thursday, Gérald Darmanin also referred to the probable presence of “more than 1,000 radical elements” at the various demonstrations in France, particularly in Paris, but also, according to him, in Lyon, Rennes, Nantes, Dijon and Bordeaux.
These contingents could be supplied with people “who came from abroad, and others who were present in Sainte-Soline this weekend”, as part of the demonstration against the detention basins in Deux-Sèvres that led to the confrontation on Sunday . Dozens of injuries have been recorded among opponents of the basins as well as among the police and two protesters are currently in a coma.
Source: BFM TV
