The French government expects the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests in Paris this weekend could be more violent than ever, despite President Emmanuel Macron buckling on fuel tax hikes.
The Élysée Palace, seat of President Emmanuel Macron, announced to French media they are expecting “great violence” on Saturday as Yellow Vest protestors have announced “Act IV” of their nearly four-week-long protest against the Macron regime that was initially sparked by a rise in fuel taxes, franceinfo reports.
According to the Élysée, they expect “a hard core of several thousand people” to arrive in Paris on Saturday with the intent to “break and kill.”
Yellow vests (Gilets jaunes) protesters block the road leading to the Frontignan oil depot in the south of France, as they demonstrate against the rise in fuel prices and the cost of living on December 3, 2018 / PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images)
The government is taking the situation so seriously that they have ordered a general mobilisation of every police officer nationwide for Saturday including doubling the number of officers in Paris.
Rumours had also circulated on social media of the possibility that Macron has ordered the French military to be present in Paris on Saturday with some posting images and videos of what appear to be armoured personnel carriers being pre-deployed. The planned presence of armoured vehicles, a first since 2005, was later confirmed by the government.
The security for the public transit systems in the French capital will also be totally mobilised with the Paris public transport company RATP already planning to divert or cancel dozens of buses and other forms of public transit going to the Champs-Élysées, the Opera, and several other areas of the city.
On top of the regular police forces and Gendarmes, around 500 officers of the Directorate for Combating Irregular Immigration (SDLII) will be called upon and the Department of Local Security in Greater Paris (DSPAP) has also said their entire staff will be available to help.
The U.S. embassy in France has also put out a demonstration alert for Saturday’s protests saying, “Demonstrations may become violent, resulting in damage to property, including overturning vehicles and setting them on fire. Police responses may include water cannons and/or tear gas.”
The embassy recommended that Americans and others should avoid the protest areas, “shelter in place if in the areas affected,” and notify family for their safety.
While police have been called on to help quell the expected violence in the French capital, many are showing signs of sympathy to the Yellow Vests and their demands.
The Police Union Vigi Ministère de l’Intérieur has not only expressed support for the Yellow Vest movement but has called on members to go on an indefinite strike starting on Saturday, and join the Yellow Vests.
Policemen stand next to their vehicles near the Arc de Triomphe during a protest of Yellow vests (Gilets jaunes) against rising oil prices and living costs, on December 1, 2018 in Paris / ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images
“It is time to organise legally and to be in solidarity with them, for the benefit of all,” the union said and added, “We know that we will have wounded and we fear to have dead among us.”
The strike will not affect active-duty officers, who are not allowed to strike by law but will impact support and administrative staff.
“Without the technical assistance and cooks, the companies of CRS [riot police] can be immobilised. Without the administrative assistants, services can be closed. Without the state workers, the maintenance of buildings and vehicles can no longer be done,” the union said.
Riot Police stand near a metro station after charching high school students of the Lycee Professionnel Jean-Pierre Timbaud protesting against French government Education reforms on December 3, 2018 in the north of Paris’ suburb of Aubervilliers. / THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images
While last weekend saw intense amounts of violence within Paris, vandalism has continued in the last several days, including in the department of Puy-de-Dôme where 95 per cent of all the motorway speed cameras have now been destroyed.
Vandalism and destruction have also been directed at tax collection offices across the country in recent weeks.
On Tuesday night, a tax office in the commune of Riom in central France was firebombed and only a day before a treasury office in Saint-Andiol, located near Avignon, was also firebombed.
Over the last three weeks, other tax offices have also been targetted, including the office in Limoges where a tractor was rammed into the front of the building to block the entrance and in the city of Cahors were Yellow Vests blocked entrance into the tax building and wrote “stop the racket” and “Merry Christmas and Good Taxes” on the walls.
With 67 per cent of the French believing that taxes are “too excessive,” tax collectors say they are now becoming fearful for their safety. In Poitiers last week, 200 tax collector staff were forced to flee the Yellow Vest protestors with one remarking, “The crowd screamed ‘fascists! collaborators!’ What is the next step? The guillotine? The scaffold?”
The tax officials are not the only ones fearing for their safety according to a source close to the presidency who said that all non-essential ministerial staff have been told to stay home on Saturday. “Everyone is scared. Fear for the stability of the institutions, for the continuity of the State, for the French, for our lives, for France,” the source said.
President Macron has already been confronted in public by Yellow Vest members while visiting the commune of Puy-en-Velay earlier this week. When the French leader attempted to greet the Yellow Vests he was met with shouts of “Démission!” or “Resign!” and was chased by Yellow Vests as his convoy attempted to leave the area.
While the original goal of the protests, to end a hike on fuel taxes, was met by Macron earlier this week, the Yellow Vest movement has burgeoned into what some have deemed as a true populist movement.
Breitbart London spoke to French author Renaud Camus and he claimed that the protests were borne of a much deeper problem in France.
“The problem is that the protesters themselves are so far too close to the picture, too much inside it, to realise that their fight is part of the general struggle against global replacementism, Davocracy,” Camus said, referring to the globalist elites who meet at the World Economic Forum every year in Davos, Switzerland.
He also noted that the protestors were “exemplified by the fact that practically all protesters belong to the indigenous, colonised, invaded, conquered people, the ‘natural’ French people.”
In the face of the past violence and expectation of more this weekend, 72 per cent of French still remain supporters of the Yellow Vest movement.