Hundreds of protests expected across France, with shops, businesses and tourist sites closed – Europe live

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of events in Europe – we will be closely following protests across the continent today.

In France, hundreds of thousands are expected at rallies across the country, with high school students, unionists, “yellow vest” demonstrators and others turning out for a fourth weekend of protests demanding more government funding for schools and measures to help with housing and the cost of living.

Desperate to avoid the looting and property damage seen on the fringes of some protests last weekend, French authorities have ramped up restrictions on where protesters can march and which groups are “authorised” to do so. They’ve increased policing 20%, mobilising 70,000 police officers and soldiers to the streets, including both elite units and trainee officers.

Many of Paris’s metro stations and major museums and tourist sites are shut today, while across the country, shops and businesses have been urged to close their doors. Community tensions are also high following a deadly shooting on Friday west of Paris where the gunman targeted non-white people, killing one person and injuring five others including a child. The French president called it a “racist terrorist attack”.

Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party is also due to hold its national conference in the central city of Orléans. The far-right National Rally’s meeting is expected to draw up to 30,000 counter-demonstrators. Protests are also being held in Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Albania and Ireland today.

Tension was also high in the town of Orléans on Saturday as Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally party gathers for its annual congress and the official launch of her presidential campaign.

The police presence in the city has been stepped up as around 5,000 party members and officials gather on Saturday and 10,000 attend Le Pen’s first campaign rally on Sunday.

A protest march by the left has been organised against “racism, fascism and imperialism”. Between 20,000 and 30,000 people are expected to demonstrate against the far-right in the city.

Several political personalities on the left were to attend the Orléans march including the leader of the Socialist party, Olivier Faure, the head of the leftwing CGT union, Sophie Binet, and the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, from the party La France Insoumise.

The capital’s authorities have shut down the stations in a bid to contain crowds and curb movement throughout the city today. The affected stations are: Argentine, Assemblée Nationale, Bel Air, Champs-Elysées – Clemenceau, Charles de Gaulle – Étoile, Cluny - La Sorbonne, Concorde, Daumesnil, Dugommier, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George V, Mabillon, Maubert – Mutualité, Miromesnil, Odéon, Picpus, Rennes, Rue du Bac, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Sulpice, Sèvres - Babylone, Solférino, Tuileries and Varenne.

We’ve seen other attempts by authorities to restrict movement in cities across France for this weekend; Marseille authorities earlier this week said they would suspend public transport services on Saturday; they were forced to reverse the decision following outcry.

In Orléans, which is hosting the far-right National Rally congress, the tram lines are suspended and bike-sharing rentals have been removed from the city centre.

All through the night in neighbourhoods in the centre and east of Paris, the sound of sawing, drilling and hammering rang out as wooden boards were hastily secured into place to cover windows and shop-fronts.

Businesses being boarded up included opticians, supermarkets and pharmacies as well as trainers and handbag stores.

Hundreds of shops were smashed and looted over two nights last weekend in Paris, and thousands more in cities across France, including Marseille and Bordeaux.

At a public meeting at Paris city hall this week, some shop-owners had cried as they spoke of their fears of businesses being smashed and looted again this weekend.

“I’m afraid there isn’t enough wooden board left to protect shops and the demand is making it so expensive to board up shops,” one optician near Châtelet in the city centre said. “We’ll close up and take all our stock of glasses out of the shop.”