France saw a fleeting sense of relief on Sunday morning after Saturday’s protests ended with fewer clashes. While police kept a lid on vandalism, 410,000 people joined nationwide demonstrations. President Emmanuel Macron described a recent shooting as a "turning point" for the country, as political tensions continue to grow daily.
While the police kept a lid on vandalism, the huge number of protesters, and France's fraught politics, suggest unrest could grow.
For the French government, there was a fleeting sense of relief on Sunday morning as workers in Paris and other cities hauled away charred trash bins and swept up debris after another day of disorder.
Largely peaceful protests on Saturday ended in the evening with clashes between the police and protesters, but as chaotic as the scenes were, they did not escalate into the wholesale arson and looting that engulfed the country a week earlier. A fortified police presence and widespread arrests kept a lid on vandalism, if not preventing it altogether.
Yet the respite could be short-lived. The huge turnout for the demonstrations -- 410,000 people nationwide, according to the interior ministry; 800,000, according to the union organizers -- suggested that, far from flagging, the protest movement was gaining momentum. Activists called for another day of protests on Oct. 31.
France remains acutely on edge. The killing of a young man in a shooting spree in a suburb of Paris on Friday has only added to the tensions. The authorities have not fully identified the assailant, who was arrested and is awaiting charges. President Emmanuel Macron of France denounced the shooting as a "racist terrorist attack" and described it as a "turning point" for the country.
French politics, too, may be nearing a fateful transition. On Sunday, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the main far-right party, was scheduled to officially begin her campaign to succeed Mr. Macron as president next spring. The unrest has buoyed her prospects, as she has promised to restore law and order and condemned Mr. Macron for what she says is an ineffectual response.
Other critics accused the government of using heavy-handed tactics to suppress the protests on Saturday. Local authorities refused to allow several rallies and, in Paris, changed the route of the main demonstration at the last minute, so that protesters were pushed from the center of the city to its southwestern periphery.
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