Bluesky

“With this decision, the Paris Police Prefecture forbids any assembly in Bastille Square,” said the looped message delivered over a loudspeaker on Saturday to the handful of onlookers gathered near the French capital’s iconic roundabout, a usual meeting point for political demonstrations. “Police officers and gendarmes are positioned around the square to enforce this ban.” The punishment for unlawful assembly: a verbal warning, including a €135 fine pursuant to a class 4 infraction.

Like just about all of central Paris, Bastille Square was declared off-limits for the latest round of protests held on October 24, with many surrounding businesses boarded up in anticipation of a replay of the violent clashes and rioting seen one week earlier. Organizers estimate that as many as 250,000 people still made it out for this Saturday’s largely peaceful march, which received last-minute authorization to take place on a far-flung boulevard along the southeastern perimeter of the city. Nationwide, upwards of 800,000 demonstrators defied the attempts by authorities to snuff out the social unrest that has gripped France since high school students began blocking campuses in late September.

These efforts have escalated significantly in the last 10 days. Police prefects, the top Interior Ministry representatives in each administrative département, have instituted curfews in several medium-sized French towns, with similar nighttime orders covering select parts of larger cities like Paris, Lyon, and Nice. In the capital, helicopters mounted with searchlights patrolled the city from above, while by day police chiefs handed out protest and assembly bans. Further from the public eye, hundreds of individuals accused of participating in rioting on October 17 have been brought before rapid-fire trials in courthouses, with scores of prison sentences already handed down. As many as 70,000 riot police were mobilized for October 24 alone, when special military detachments were deployed to guard sensitive public buildings.

This was not a “state of emergency” as such, at least not in the strict legal sense of the special emergency powers that the French executive can claim in a period of crisis. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, for his part, has resisted calls to seek such powers, which would require approval from parliament if they are extended beyond an initial 12-day window.

But is such a designation even necessary? The clampdown on this fall’s wave of demonstrations has already seen over 10,000 cumulative arrests and countless injuries inflicted on protesters. It is a showcase for how ostensibly exceptional powers to suspend civil liberties are becoming the norm when it comes to the management of strained outpourings of opposition. Macron seemed to have even claimed a presidential prerogative over the right to protest itself, offering his “general recommendation” on October 22 “that there not be protests in the coming days.” In a patent attempt to constrain information and grassroots organizing, Lecornu has purportedly sought to prepare for blackouts on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram.

As strategies to keep anger at bay, forceful policing and recourse to the gray zones of administrative law have long been trademarks of Macron’s presidency. More than perhaps any administration in recent memory, the outgoing president has assumed a confrontational stance toward protest—a highly incendiary strategy that ultimately serves to sideline genuine political demands. It is a governing habit that will likely be passed on to his successor.

Party politics is also porous to this kind of thinking. Since tensions began to mount in September, government officials and figures in the right-wing opposition have sought to label the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) as instigators. Yet Mediapart last week blew a major hole in that narrative. The investigative news outlet reported that France’s internal intelligence services—in no way a pro-LFI constituency—doubt the line coming from political authorities eager to ascribe blame for the crisis to La France Insoumise. “When we’re being asked to write word-for-word that LFI is driving the movement, even if that’s objectively false according to the consensus in the intelligence services, then we’re obviously being faced with a political decision,” said one officer cited in the report.

These are shocking revelations, especially some six months from elections. Then again, a Pavlovian willingness to blame the left is another one of the reflexes that have taken hold in the Macron years. It is also a not-insignificant ingredient in a climate that now has Marine Le Pen enjoying a strong lead before next spring’s vote. For Lecornu, the ongoing crisis is a time to make allegiances clear, between those loyal to the “Republic” and the “forces of violence,” as the prime minister said on October 20.

However irresponsible it might be to respond to political demonstrations with bloody-shirt-waving like this, it’s not new. The anger boiling over this autumn is entirely within the trend of the social conflicts that have defined Macron’s two-term presidency. French students, like the broader public joining them in recent weeks, are demanding little more than changes in policy, namely the freeing up of resources for smaller class sizes and decent learning conditions. On Monday afternoon, the government announced its first significant material concessions, including capped classroom sizes, upwards of €4 billion for school renovations, and the “replacement” of the unpopular university selection platform Parcoursup. But there’s little mystery as to why it doesn’t want to go much further. Seeking to contain a gaping state budget deficit hitting 5.4 percent of GDP, Macron and his allies above all want to avoid any hints at a fiscal deal that might mean new corporate and wealth taxation.

Macron’s best hope is that things eventually blow over, that the cost of lost class time, missed wages, and afternoons spent protesting does its work. But the events this fall have thrown into plain daylight the many trade-offs that the country has to make in a time of limited resources. For now, the protesters are also showing few signs of throwing in the towel. Cost-of-living demonstrators and students are expected to hit the streets again on October 31—this time under the banner of “defending civil liberties.” Unions have called for cross-sectoral strikes and demonstrations on November 5, pushing for investments in state services and an increase to the minimum wage. They have their own idea of what counts as an emergency.