Paris — France is bracing for a third consecutive weekend of nationwide protests, this time coinciding with Halloween, with authorities deploying around 70,000 police officers and gendarmes across the country amid fears of a repeat of the violent looting and rioting that swept the country on October 17. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has warned of a "very high risk of public disorder," while shopkeepers across Paris and other cities boarded up their windows ahead of Saturday's demonstrations.
The Security Operation
Nuñez announced the deployment at a news conference on Thursday, October 29, saying the 70,000 officers would match the number mobilised the previous weekend and describing the move as an "exceptional measure." He said security measures introduced the prior week to protect shops, including the use of armoured vehicles and water cannon, would be strengthened.
Many law enforcement officers who had been on leave were called back to duty across the country, while others had their rest days cancelled. An aide to Nuñez said street violence on a scale "comparable" to the October 17 unrest was expected.
Nuñez declared that protests in city centres had been banned, with only demonstrations "on the outskirts of cities" permitted. In Paris, police imposed a curfew on Saturday and Sunday nights in districts that experienced significant unrest on October 17. More than 1,000 municipal workers were also mobilised in Paris to clean up public spaces over the weekend, according to the mayor's office.
The Halloween Factor
Authorities have expressed particular concern that the Halloween date could complicate efforts to identify violent individuals. Nuñez warned demonstrators against using Halloween "as a legitimate reason to hide one's face" to cause disturbances in public areas. He said that authorities had detected social media calls for Halloween gatherings on Saturday evening that urged protesters to spark a "revolution," and accused elements of the "ultra-left" movement and some yellow vest activists of circulating such messages.
Reports indicated that some social media posts encouraged participants to wear black clothing and Halloween masks to avoid being identified by police.
Alain Di Crescenzo, president of France's chamber of commerce, said businesses were worried, noting: "The information we have is that Halloween is not helping matters, because we're going to have people wearing masks." Shopkeepers, he told France Inter, "can't wait for Saturday to be over."
The "yellow vest" movement and student unions have called for a new day of protests on Saturday. The yellow vest movement has announced a "third act" of its protests on Halloween, calling for demonstrations outside the National Assembly and all town halls across the country.
How the Unrest Developed
The current wave of unrest began in mid-September 2026 with school protests over staffing shortages before broadening into nationwide demonstrations over the rising cost of living. On October 17, mass protests that began largely peacefully degenerated into rioting and looting in several cities, with thousands of businesses damaged or looted. Authorities have since acknowledged security and intelligence failures that enabled the clashes, looting and vandalism on that date.
Following the October 17 violence, authorities rolled out an expanded security operation on October 24, deploying the same 70,000-strong force, according to authorities, this deployment helped prevent a repeat of the looting and vandalism seen the prior weekend.
However, following the security clampdown and serious injuries sustained by some protesters, the movement has broadened its demands to include greater protection of civil liberties and the right to protest itself. Separately, France was shaken last week by a shooting outside Paris that killed one person and wounded seven others, adding to the broader sense of insecurity in the country.
The protests are unfolding in an increasingly tense political climate, with France's presidential election roughly six months away and far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading opinion polls, according to France 24. Reporting has noted that Le Pen has sought to use the unrest to her political advantage as her presidential campaign gets underway.
France is not alone in preparing for protests this weekend. Police in Spain and Germany have also been placed on alert, and a youth-led movement in Germany has planned demonstrations in 34 cities over living costs, austerity and social inequality.
Legal Framework
Under French law, public demonstrations are governed by the Code de la sécurité intérieure (Internal Security Code), which requires organisers to notify authorities in advance and empowers prefects, the state's departmental representatives, acting under the Interior Minister's direction, to prohibit demonstrations where there is a serious risk of public disorder that cannot be prevented by other means.
These bans are subject to challenge before administrative courts, which examine whether the restriction is necessary and proportionate. The right to demonstrate derives from Article 11 of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, part of France's constitutional framework, which protects the free communication of opinions, subject to legal limits.
French law also separately criminalises concealing one's face during a demonstration without a legitimate reason, a provision strengthened by the 2019 "anti-casseurs" (anti-rioter) law, which makes it an offence to deliberately hide one's face within or near a public demonstration without legitimate reason, where there is a risk of public order disturbance.
This is the legal backdrop to Nuñez's warning that Halloween costumes would not constitute a legitimate reason to conceal one's identity. Local authorities also hold powers to impose curfews in specified districts where serious public-order concerns exist, as was done in Paris for the weekend's nights.
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