Saturday bans in France's second- and third-largest cities

The Lyon Marseille protest ban was announced by local prefects on Thursday, who prohibited all demonstrations in the two cities for Saturday, October 24, seeking to prevent a repeat of the violence and looting that marked the previous weekend. The Rhone prefecture said the prefect had banned by decree all demonstrations in the city this Saturday, given the events of October 17. The orders were issued, it said, "for the obvious reasons of security".

The ban came with extra measures in Marseille for the weekend:

• •Public transport in the city was suspended on Saturday
• •The existing night curfew for minors in the city centre was expanded to apply to adults
• •The extended curfew covers Saturday and Sunday nights

Court lifts a Paris ban, the march goes ahead

While prefects clamped down in the provinces, a Paris ban failed. An administrative court issued an emergency ruling suspending a Paris police order banning a demonstration organised by Interfac Île-de-France, which had been planned for 2pm; the court gave no reasons for its decision.

The ban had been imposed earlier on Thursday, with a police source telling AFP it rested on organisers' "inability to prevent violence and vandalism". After the ruling, the previously banned student protest set off from Pitié Salpêtrière university hospital in Paris's 13th arrondissement, with a heavy police presence surrounding the march.

Paris clears the streets ahead of Saturday

In the capital, city hall moved to strip the streets of anything that could be used for damage ahead of the weekend. Paris city hall urged residents to exercise "extreme caution" on Saturday and recommended bringing in rubbish bins, bicycles and outdoor furniture from midday Saturday.

The city also began clearing public spaces, as far as possible, of equipment and materials that could be used to cause damage. That includes barriers and movable construction-site equipment, while litter bins were emptied and glass recycling containers removed.

Weekend landscape across France

The bans come after a weekend in which an estimated 450 businesses were damaged in Paris, roughly half of them looted, and cars, bicycles and rubbish bins were torched or vandalised. President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that a defence council meeting would be convened Friday under his chairmanship, that further decisions would be taken, and that only union-organised protests would be authorised on Saturday.

Other movements still have plans for the weekend:

• •UNEF, the student union, called for rallies on Saturday
• •The Yellow Vest movement, the anti-establishment force that emerged in 2018, filed plans for a march through central Paris

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu met political party leaders and was due to meet on Thursday with the mayors of some of the cities worst hit by the riots, including Paris, Marseille and Lyon.