Overview
- On Saturday, Oct. 24, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said about 70,000 police and gendarmes would be deployed nationwide with helicopters, armoured vehicles and water cannon to prevent renewed violence.
- Major Paris museums including the Louvre, Orsay, the Picasso museum and the Grand Palais closed and Art Basel curtailed its weekend programme as shops and luxury boutiques boarded up windows and boosted private security.
- The unrest began with high‑school blockades over staff shortages and poor facilities and spread into nationwide protests on cost of living that on Oct. 17 produced arson, looting, clashes with police and thousands of arrests.
- Authorities have imposed bans on some marches and fast prosecutions that rights groups and unions say risk curbing the right to demonstrate, while officials stress they will take an uncompromising approach to vandals and looters.
- The crisis has immediate costs for tourism and retail and is reshaping politics ahead of the 2027 presidential race, with polls showing gains for Marine Le Pen and the National Rally preparing a congress that could draw counter‑protests.