French police arrested dozens of people and fired tear gas at some protesters on Saturday as authorities stepped up security in major cities in an effort to prevent a repeat of similar incidents. last week’s riots. Demonstrations across the country have focused on the high cost of living, with another large demonstration expected after more than 500,000 people took to the streets last week.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 135 people had been arrested and a variety of weapons seized. He said the items confiscated included metal balls, lead bullets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, samurai swords and air guns. Nunez added that so far “no major incidents have occurred” in the country.
Nunez previously said that up to 70,000 police officers would be deployed across the country, as well as helicopters, armored vehicles and water cannons.
Demonstrations in the southeastern city of Lyon have been banned, but about 150 protesters near the city center briefly tried to block roads. Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. A 21-year-old student who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said authorities were “very mobile”.
“They came to break up the march before it even formed,” the student said. A police helicopter flew over the city as security forces, armored vehicles and riot police vehicles patrolled.
In Orleans, thousands marched against a congress of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party. Le Pen is launching a campaign to succeed Macron as French president. The election is due to take place in six months, and surveys suggest Le Pen is the favorite to win. Demonstrators in Orleans protested against both Macron and Le Pen.
According to AFP, the crowd chanted “Macron resigns. Le Pen goes to jail.” Police put the number of participants at 11,000, while organizers said 26,000 took part. About 50 organizations, including trade unions, left-wing parties and student groups, have called for protests against Le Pen’s nationalist, anti-immigration party. The party is expected to continue into Saturday.
Paris prepares for protests
Major museums in Paris closed, authorities deployed heavy police force A new round of protests across France on Saturday in hopes of preventing a repeat of the violent riots that rocked the country last week.
Major museums including the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais, which houses the Cézanne exhibition, were closed on Saturday. Art Basel, one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fairs, opened to the public on Friday but for that day only, with threats of riots prompting organizers to cancel weekend events.
New Orleans Saints vs New Orleans Saints first NFL game in France pittsburg steelers The Paris conference is still scheduled to take place on Sunday, but some related venues have been closed. An NFL pop-up store and the “NFL House,” which displays the Super Bowl trophy and schedules community meetings and events, were closed Saturday. A similar venue for the New Orleans Saints has also been postponed until Sunday. Another NFL pop-up store in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, remains open, the NFL said. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said earlier this week that preparations for the game were in consultation with U.S. and French authorities.
The football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais that was scheduled to take place in Paris on Sunday has been postponed until Monday evening.
Shopkeepers in Paris have been cordoning off their stores all week. The Paris neighborhood of Place de la République was one of the hot spots last weekend, with a bank branch and other businesses boarded up to deter would-be looters.
Over the weekend, some 3,000 shops were vandalized or looted across France. Demonstrations first broke out last month when high school students in southeast Paris protested for better living conditions, but quickly spread across the country as people took to the streets to demand relief from rising living costs.
A student named Lucas told CBS on Saturday morning that he believed “it’s normal for people to be angry.”
“It escalated because we felt the government wasn’t listening,” Lucas said.
Firas Abdullah/Anadolu, Getty Images 
Protest marches are planned in Paris and Marseille, but some other rallies in places including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier have been banned by local authorities. Cities outside Paris were hard hit by riots. In Limoges, a suspected arson attack nearly destroyed the 19th-century town hall.