Gatherings at Place de la Concorde, as well as on the Champs-Élysées, were banned on Saturday by the Paris police headquarters, after two evenings of demonstrations punctuated by incidents against the use of 49.3 to pass the pension reform.
“Due to the serious risk of disturbances to public order and safety […], any gathering on the public thoroughfare at Place de la Concorde and its surroundings, as well as in the sector of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, is prohibited,” the prefecture told Agence France-Presse.
“People who try to gather there will be systematically ousted by the police” and may be fined, the same source added.
The demonstrations which took place Thursday evening and Friday evening place de la Concorde, a few hundred meters from the National Assembly, were peppered with incidents. After dark, hundreds of people clashed with the police in small groups, throwing projectiles.
On Friday, when 4,000 people gathered in the square, 61 people were arrested, according to the Paris police headquarters. On Thursday, 10,000 people gathered there and 258 people were arrested.
The Place de la Concorde, the largest in Paris, is located at the foot of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and contains in its center the obelisk of Luxor. It is known in particular for having been one of the places of execution during the French Revolution.
