Live: Fresh protests hit France amid heightened security

Follow below for the latest on the protests and unrest in France and other parts of Europe on Saturday, October 24, 2026:

France's Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez said that police had arrested 135 people and seized a variety of weapons as they deployed for nationwide demonstrations.

Nunez said police have been given orders to prevent renewed street violence.

He said weapons confiscated included metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana and airsoft weapons.

He went on to say that, so far, "there has been no major incident."

Earlier this morning, Nunez posted on social media that he had visited personnel belonging to the Paris intervention unit who make up some of the contingent mobilized in Paris.

"Our forces are mobilized, our setup is in place. We are ready," Nunez said.

France's Yellow Vest movement, one of the key groups behind recent protests against the high cost of living, on Saturday called for new demonstrations on October 31.

Organizers from the largely rural-based group said in Paris that they wanted fresh rallies and a sit-in outside parliament, as well as outside city halls nationwide, to be held in protest at what it called the "authoritarian drift" of President Emmanuel Macron.

Members of the group have also refused to comply with a police order to shift the route of a union-organized route to the edge of the capital, although the unions themselves have agreed to do so. Next Saturday, "we will protest for the freedom to protest, and for all our freedoms," a coordinator from the group told journalists at Paris's Bastille square, which was where the march was due to set off originally.

After being central to protests from 2018 to 2020 against rising fuel prices, the Yellow Vest movement went into abeyance but has recently come to the fore once again amid the current wave of demonstrations sweeping France.

As the unrest in France spills over to its European neighbors, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has ordered 500 additional soldiers to be sent to Milan to join hundreds already stationed there as the northern city braces for more protests.

They will support some 5,000 police and other law enforcement personnel present in Milan in a bid to prevent the looting and violence seen at protests last week.

Authorities are conducting drone surveillance, carrying out checks at railway stations and monitoring potential calls to violence online.

Security is also high in Rome, with luxury shopping streets locked down and stepped-up controls around the Circus Maximus and Piazza del Popolo ahead of planned demonstrations.

Aside from Rome and Milan, demonstrations have been called in at least seven other cities.

Albania, Spain and Portugal are also seeing waves of protests, with demonstrations planned on Saturday over long-standing issues ranging from education deficiencies in the former to affordable housing shortages in the latter two.

Tourists out to see the sights in Paris on Saturday might be in for quite a few disappointments, with several key sites closed amid security fears.

The Louvre, the Orsay Museum and the Picasso Museum are all to remain closed for the day, as is the Grand Palais, where a major exbibition of the French painter Paul Cezanne is currently taking place.

The contemporary art fair Art Basel Paris, which opened to the public of Friday, closed its doors the day after, with the entire weekend program canceled.

Other major sites that are closed include the Tuileries Gardens, which was already shut on Friday owing to stormy weather.

The famous Arc de Triomphe is also closed to visitors, while the Champs Elysee, which leads to it, is under access restrictions, as are several other key locations.

The closures come following sometimes violent rioting on the sidelines of mass demonstrations on October 17, with authorities fearing a repeat of similar scenes at Saturday's protests.

Police have used teargas grenades to disperse a small protest in an area banned to all demonstrations in the southeastern city of Lyon, according to a journalist from the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The group was protesting near a university faculty and the city's police station, according to AFP.

The agency said the police took action as the protesters tried to block the road.

Many store owners across France have taken their own precautionary measures to protect their premises against vandalism despite a high police presence meant to guarantee security.

Several glitzy facades of prestigious shops in the capital, Paris, have now disappeared behind boards.

Here are some pictures of the current face of one of the world's most famous shopping hubs.

With some 70,000 police officers to be deployed on Saturday, many people in France are fearing repeat violence not just from certain groups of protesters but also from the forces of law and order.

During recent student protests, a number of teenagers sustained serious injuries amid police actions, and multiple unconfirmed videos have shown incidents of brutality toward protesters at last week's wider demonstrations.

French police are among the most heavily armed in Europe and are subjected to less independent oversight than in many other countries.

Rights group Amnesty International has described the police response to the current protests as "disproportionate" and called upon French authorities to "act upon their human rights obligations."

This DW article looks at the criticism leveled at French police and the differences between policing in France and elsewhere: Are the French police the most violent in the EU?

A two-day congress of the far-right National Rally (RN) party in the city of Orleans, some 110 km (70 miles) south of Paris, is expected to draw its own protest by labor unions, left-wing parties, students and anti-racism groups.

The congress is to be hosted by Marine Le Pen, the party's lead candidate at French presidential elections in six months time.

Authorities fear clashes between counterprotesters and supporters of Le Pen, who has a nationalist, anti-immigration agenda and has received upwind from the recent protests by taking a strong law-and-order stance and citing "anarchic immigration" as one factor behind them.

The congress is likely to see the reelection of party president, Jordan Bardella.

French authorities say they will be deploying some 70,000 police on Saturday amid renewed protests as they look to prevent a repeat of the violence that marred mass nationwide demonstrations over social inequality a week ago.

Announcing the deployment, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned at a news conference in Paris that calls for violence and looting were circulating on social media.

Several restrictions on protests have been imposed across the country, including bans on a union-led march on one route in the capital, Paris, that organizers say they will disregard, citing safety concerns about a proposed alternative.

Leading museums in Paris, including the Louvre, will also remained closed.

The protests come a critical political moment for France, with elections due in six months to elect a successor to President Emmanual Macron.

Polls have shown far-right candidate Marine Le Pen as the frontrunner and indicated that the latest events might have shored up her popularity.

You can read more about the security precautions and background to the protests in France in this article:France to deploy 70,000 police officers ahead of protests

French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned a shooting near Paris on Friday in which one person was killed and five others were injured, including a 12-year-old girl.

Macron called the attack "a turning point," saying it was "a terrorist act that was planned ​to kill our compatriots, our children, based on the color of their skin or their religion."

The victim killed was said by authorities to have been of "African origin," and most of the injured were also from foreign backgrounds.

The shooting is likely to further fuel tensions ahead of protests planned for Saturday, with some far-right politicians blaming immigration for the violence on the sidelines of protests in several French cities on October 17.

You can read more about the attack in this article: France: 1 killed, 4 wounded after shooting near Paris

France is bracing for another day of mass protests a week after the country saw some violent rioting on the sidelines of demonstrations against rising inequality, declining public services and a deteriorating education system.

The current wave of protests sweeping the country comes on the heels of largely peaceful demonstrations by high school students over learning conditions.

Some 70,000 police are to be deployed in the capital, Paris, and other cities, while protest bans are in place in several locations.

The protests in France have spilled over into other European countries, with Italy also expecting mass demonstrations on Saturday.

In this blog, we will be keeping you up to date on all the latest protest developments in France and other European countries on Saturday, October 24, and Sunday, October 25.