The Minister of the Interior indicated his desire to “allow people to demonstrate if they wish in good conditions”.
Traveling to Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin detailed the security arrangements concerning the demonstrations planned in France on Tuesday January 31 against the pension reform wanted by the government.
“Tomorrow there are 11,000 gendarmes and police mobilized everywhere in France, including 4,000 just for Paris”, announced the minister.
Gérald Darmanin expressed his desire to “allow people to demonstrate if they wish in good conditions”.
On January 19, during the previous strike movement which had been massively followed, with more than a million French people in the streets, 10,000 police and gendarmes had been deployed across the country, and 3,500 in Paris. A figure which is therefore increasing for the day of Tuesday.
“A message of firmness”
“It is a message of firmness that I pass and of great democratic concern that the French who wish to be able to demonstrate tomorrow in Paris as elsewhere by a very significant presence of the police, because the number makes the security of the processions” , assured Gérald Darmanin.
The minister then praised the “spirit of responsibility” of the trade union organizations and their security services, expressing his “wish” that the demonstrations planned for Tuesday take place “under the same conditions” as those of January 19, “without serious incidents notable”.
This first day had however been marred by the blow dealt by a police officer to a demonstrator, who had to undergo the removal of one of his testicles.