France to deploy 70,000 police on Saturday to prevent civil unrest

France will deploy about 70,000 police around the country on Saturday as the government seeks to prevent more civil unrest after some of the worst street violence in years erupted on the fringes of cost-of-living protests last weekend.

The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on ⁠Friday ⁠the security forces would include elite units usually used for counter-terrorism operations and hostage rescues, adding that there had been social media calls for violence from “ultra-left” groups.

“We are not talking about ⁠a peaceful, friendly demonstration,” Nuñez ​told reporters after a meeting of senior ministers and officials chaired by the president, Emmanuel Macron. “We ​are ​ready tomorrow ​to be ‌extremely firm ​and ​not tolerate anything.”

Major museums including the Louvre, Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum and Grand Palais – where a major Cézanne exhibit is on display – are closed Saturday. Art Basel, one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fairs, opened to the public Friday, but only for the day, with the threat of unrest prompting organisers to cancel the weekend program.

Parisian shopkeepers have been barricading their stores all week. Near Place de la République in Paris, one of last weekend’s hotspots, a bank branch and other businesses were boarded up with wooden panels to deter potential looters.

Macron and his government are struggling to get on top of a crisis that has caught it off guard six months before presidential elections to choose his successor. The government has admitted it “lost control” over widespread rioting on Saturday.