Paris braces for protest amid fears of violence

Paris / AFP

Paris was on high alert for more street clashes on Thursday as unions prepared another march against labour market reforms in a three-month protest campaign which has been marred by violence.
The march is to take place after the another round of bitter negotiations in which the embattled Socialist government tried to ban the protest over security fears, before backing down and agreeing on a short, tightly-contained route.
The threat of a ban—which would have been the first in 54 years—only deepened the rancour between the government and unions who accuse President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls of undemocratic behaviour.
Unions are protesting a series of deeply-unpopular labour market reforms which Valls had to force through parliament in May to avoid a vote, even after significantly watering down the bill.
However after more than three months of protests over the legislation, neither side is willing to budge, and hardline unions have vowed to keep up protests and strikes until their demands to further revise the bill are met.
Valls warned that fresh violence would not be tolerated after the last protest on June 14 saw bloody clashes.
Protesters smashed up storefronts and attacked a children’s hospital, shattering some of its windows while others hurled projectiles at police, who made dozens of arrests.
Two police officers were hospitalised, while another 26 were injured.
“The French people do not tolerate and will not tolerate any excesses or those who do not condemn them,” Valls said. The protests have weighed heavy on an already-overstretched police force dealing with months of terror fears and securing the Euro 2016 football tournament, which has been marred by hooligan violence.
Thursday’s march will be the 10th in a wave of protests against the government’s disputed labour reforms that kicked off in March, with many descending into violence, notably in Paris and the western cities of Nantes and Rennes.
The compromise route will see marchers will head from Place de la Bastille to the Seine, looping around the Arsenal Basin before returning to the square where the royal prison was famously stormed in 1789 at the start of the French Revolution.
Protesters will be screened and searched “to prevent them from bringing in projectiles or items for disguising themselves,” said Paris police chief Michel Cadot.