Everyone is waiting for the decision of the Constitutional Council on the pension reform, scheduled for Friday, the day after the 12th day of mobilization. But already, the challenge is preparing. Some 130 demonstrations are already planned all over the country, note the authorities. In Paris, several calls to demonstrate in different places have already been running for several days.
Faced with this situation, the Paris police headquarters took, this Thursday, a stop prohibiting all undeclared processions, parades and gatherings, as well as the carrying and transport of weapons or any objects likely to be used as weapons, between Thursday 6 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m. This measure concerns a sector including in particular the Council of State, the Constitutional Council, the Opéra Garnier and several shopping streets, starting with the avenue de l’Opéra.
A “tense and demanding social context”
To justify this ban, the decree underlines the “tense and demanding social context”. The police headquarters considers that there are “serious risks that determined, radical elements with high violent potential (…) respond to these calls and form wild processions with the objective, in addition to going to the outskirts of the Council constitutional, to attack the forces of order and to commit degradations”.
Finally, the decree recalls the incidents which followed the spontaneous and undeclared gatherings of March 16 and 17 at Place de la Concorde, and in the surrounding streets, then almost daily throughout Paris thereafter, in reaction to the use of Article 49.3 by the government.