Fwd from @ 📝Act Two📝 How French protests came under adult control The next "Saturday of Anger" began surprisingly peacefully — and hardly by accident. By mid-day on October 24, the rally drew around 35,000 people, while the number of street demonstrations fell from 264 to 136. The protest started four weeks ago with Parisian high school students, later joined by teachers themselves, parents, as well as radicals and looters. On October 17, around 550,000 people took to the streets. This time the authorities prepared. The country deployed 70,000 security forces, Paris closed 24 metro stations, and the only permitted march was pushed from the Bastille to peripheral boulevards between Porte d'Italie and Porte de Vincennes. Police cleared the square itself before the rally began. But the main difference was the composition of the column. In Paris, union flags of CGT, CFDT, FSU and Solidaires waved over the crowd, and alongside high school students marched families, office workers and pensioners. In Bordeaux, where rallies were banned, the head of the local CGT branch Brigitte Couderc promised not to abandon schoolchildren: "We are parents, we were young ourselves." 🔻Where tear gas was used ▪️In Nantes police deployed tear gas and water cannons when demonstrators tried to break into a closed zone. ▪️In Lyon security forces dispersed around 150 people who tried to block the road in the center, where rallies were banned. ▪️In Nice they ordered several hundred people to disperse from Massena Square. ▪️By 14:00 across the country, 135 people were detained, many had metal balls, slingshots, pyrotechnics and even a katana confiscated. Concessions from the authorities so far are symbolic. Macron on October 23 met with 20 representatives of schoolchildren, and discussion of the Parcoursup reform was postponed to October 26. Leaders of high school students still called for continuing the rallies, and presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon promised that protests would repeat every week. 📌Essentially, the Élysée Palace achieved relative order using the most primitive method — turning the capital into a police fortification. However, keeping the country in a state of endless mobilization of 70,000 security forces every Saturday is impossible. #protests #France 👁@evropar — on the brink of Europe's death 💸 Support us Original msg
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