The protests in France continue to spread: It is no longer just about higher gasoline prices. Thousands of high school students and high school students have been demonstrating since the beginning of the week against harsher selection criteria at universities and cuts in teaching staff.
In many places it came to violence: in Marseille and Bordeaux, for example, demonstrators set fire to garbage cans and cars and fought street battles with the police. In front of a grammar school in Mantes-la-Jolie, northwest of Paris, 146 people were arrested following the burning of two nearby cars. These were mainly students.
In the student protests, as in the "yellow vests" demonstrations, there are always calls for a resignation of President Emmanuel Macron. In the meantime, many students have joined in the content of the demands of the activists, such as lower living costs.
The trigger of the "yellow west" protests was initially the increase in the gasoline tax. Meanwhile, the French government has responded to the demonstrators by suspending the planned increase in the green tax on gasoline and diesel for the entire coming year and announcing that it will keep energy prices stable over the winter. But the concessions are not going far enough for the demonstrators.
France is mobilizing 65,000 law enforcement forces
For Saturday, the "yellow vests" have therefore announced renewed protests. France is arming itself with a massive contingent of security forces: 65,000 police and other law enforcement officers have been mobilized, said Prime Minister Édouard Philippe in the Senate.
The head of government again called on the "yellow vests" to renounce a trip to Paris so as not to "fall into the trap of rioters". Last weekend, more than 260 people were injured in riots in the French capital, the property damage in the millions.
A delegation of "yellow vests" asked Macron to welcome them on Friday. "The country is on the verge of a rebellion and a civil war," she warned. The activists do not follow a consistent strategy in dealing with the government: Moderate want to negotiate, but are constantly threatened by radical currents.