France prepares for day of protest a week after nationwide riots

Image source, ReutersImage caption, Some public buildings and businesses across France have been boarded up ahead of Saturday's protestsFrance is on high alert ahead of a new day of nationwide protests on Saturday, a week after the country saw some of its worst unrest in decades.Sweeping restrictions have been imposed on demonstrations across France but hundreds of thousands of protesters are still expected to gather in Paris and elsewhere for a second round of protests organised by students, trade unions and wider anti-government groups.The interior ministry has said it will deploy 70,000 police officers, ramping up the security presence in French cities, after the government was accused by opposition parties of failing to foresee the scale of the unrest on 17 October."We will not let anything go unchallenged," said Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez."We will be uncompromising with the vandals, with the looters, and all those who commit acts of violence," he added, explaining that separate from the planned protests, numerous calls for violence had been seen on social media from the "far left and radical extreme left".Hundreds of people have been jailed for vandalism, arson and lootin...