PARIS—The Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, the Picasso Museum, and the Grand Palais will be closed on Saturday, and some 70,000 police officers and gendarmes will be deployed across France, in an effort to prevent a repeat of the violence that engulfed last weekend’s protests.
The Culture Ministry confirmed the closure of the four Paris institutions in a statement to The Epoch Times, and said it had asked every establishment under its authority to take whatever measures were needed to ensure “visitor safety, staff protection, and the preservation of artworks.”
On Monday, protesters had already blocked the entrances to the Louvre in support of the far-left students’ movement.
The Grand Palais closure also brings to an early end Art Basel Paris, one of the world’s leading contemporary art fairs with 211 international galleries.
The closures come one week after the Oct. 17 day of far-left protests against the high cost of living descended into violence, looting and torching of public buildings, and clashes with police in cities across the country, in the most serious unrest France has seen in years.
Members of the left-wing CGT labor union, some students, and activists from the “yellow vest” movement, whose protests rocked the country in 2018 and 2019, have all called for a new day of mobilization on Saturday.
Ivan Rioufol, a French veteran journalist and TV commentator, cautioned that these Yellow Vests are “impostors.”
“These far-left activists have nothing to do with the original movement of 2018, which I covered every Saturday and which emerged from what I called forgotten France: rural France, the silent France, the France that is never seen or heard,” he told The Epoch Times.
“Simply putting on a yellow vest does not make you a Yellow Vest protester. The original movement was born out of a tax revolt against the carbon tax introduced by then-Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, and it called for greater democracy.”
A protester waves a Palestinian flag beside a burning newsstand at Place de la République in Paris during far-left demonstrations on Oct. 17, 2026. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
Rioufol said the movement has been “fairly quickly hijacked by the far left and distorted by violence.”
Protests have been banned for security reasons in several cities, including Lyon, Nice, and Montpellier, while marches are expected to go ahead in Paris, Marseille, and elsewhere.
‘Absolutely Uncompromising’
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said at a press conference on Friday that 70,000 police officers and gendarmes would be on duty, 10,000 more than last Saturday. They will be backed by helicopters, armored vehicles and water cannons, and elite police units will help secure public buildings such as city halls in what he described as a “highly mobile” operation.
He said radical far-left groups had posted numerous calls on social media for violence and vandalism, along with renewed calls for looting.
“We will be absolutely uncompromising” with those involved in violence, Nuñez said, warning of a firm approach to arrests and of legal consequences for offenders.
Earlier in the week, the interior minister offered to resign after acknowledging a “loss of control” in some large cities on Oct. 17, when 60,000 officers were deployed.
A McDonald’s with shattered windows and “Free Palestine” graffiti stands amid debris near Place de la République in Paris, following looting during violent far-left protests on Oct. 17, 2026. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
‘We Are Flexing Our Muscles’
Axel Ronde, a French police officer and president of the CFTC police union, told The Epoch Times on the eve of the protests that the sheer size of the deployment “was reassuring,” but he questioned whether the force on display would actually be used.
“Let’s not kid ourselves, we are flexing our muscles,” he said. “Very well, but will this force really be used, and to what extent? That is the whole issue for tomorrow.”
For years, Ronde argued, governments have stripped police of the means to act, each tragedy prompting a decision to weaken so-called intermediate weapons or withdraw them.
He cited the offensive grenade, suspended in 2014 by then-Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve after 21-year-old activist Rémi Fraisse was killed by a gendarmerie grenade at the Sivens dam protest site in southwestern France.
On Oct. 7, Nuñez also announced the suspension of stun grenades during the high school student far-left protests, following the serious injury of a youth in Lens, before authorizing their use again on the eve of the Oct. 17 demonstrations.
The consequences were on display last weekend, Ronde said, when by his estimate around 10,000 tear gas grenades were fired. “An enormous amount of resources were used, and they did not work, since we ended up with those scenes of chaos, looting, and destruction.”
Furniture burns inside the Paris offices of French fintech company Qonto after far-left activists brought burning items into the building during violent far-left protests on Oct. 17, 2026. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
Ronde contended that France has no graduated response for what he describes as insurrection rather than classic policing of demonstrations.
“When a public building is attacked, it is clearly an insurrection,” he said.
“We treat it as so-called classic public order, with tear gas, while on the other side we have individuals who are clearly armed, whether with Molotov cocktails, firework mortars, cobblestones, pétanque balls, and the list goes on.”
Counter-Protest at National Rally Congress
Attention will also turn about 70 miles south of Paris to Orléans, where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally holds its two-day congress this weekend to launch its campaign for next spring’s presidential election.
Around 50 organizations, including unions, left-wing parties, and student groups, have called for a protest against the National Rally on the sidelines of the gathering, and the local prefect, Hugues Moutouh, expects 20,000 to 30,000 demonstrators from across the country.
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