Evening edition · Thursday, 22 October 2026
The court let the students march
After his security council, the president said the general recommendation was no demonstrations at all. By two o'clock a Paris judge had suspended a police ban, and the march set off from a hospital gate. That is how a rule of law is supposed to work under pressure.
This morning’s note said the useful document would be whatever the security council admitted had gone wrong. The Elysée published its readout on Thursday. It is short. It says the council reviewed intelligence, anticipation and security for the coming weeks, “while going back over the dysfunctions” behind last weekend’s events1. It does not list them. The admission is now on paper; the inventory is not yet.
The rule for Saturday. Speaking afterwards, President Macron set the line. “The general recommendation is that there should be no demonstrations,” he said. Unions that still want to march will get “alternative routes proposed by the prefects”; protests by others will be banned “wherever possible”2. He blamed “seditious” ultra-left groups as well as vandals for last Saturday’s riots3. A defence council follows on Friday, “and we will take further decisions,” he said3. Lyon has banned every demonstration on Saturday by decree; Toulon, central Rouen and Grenoble have announced similar bans2.
The machinery. For the interior ministry, Jean-Didier Berger said on BFMTV that Saturday’s deployment will be 20% larger than on 17 October, when about 60,000 police and gendarmes were out3. Desk arithmetic: that is roughly 72,000. Justice minister Gérald Darmanin said 2,500 people have been arrested since the weekend; 174 have been locked up and more than 900 are being prosecuted3. Trials are already under way3.
The check. At 14:25 France 24 reported that an administrative court had suspended a Paris police order banning a student march planned for 2pm by Interfac Île-de-France3. The judge gave no reasons in what was reported3. By 14:53 it reported that the march had set off from the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in the 13th arrondissement3.
For you. Don’t read that ruling as a defeat for order. It shows the order working. A ban is an administrative act, and administrative acts can be challenged the same day, by people with a lawyer and a filing. If you plan to be in a French city on Saturday, check your prefecture’s own orders, which differ from city to city2. In Paris, follow what the court allowed, not just what the presidency recommended.
What to watch
A president may recommend; only a prefect may ban; only a judge may say the ban went too far.
Sources
- Conseil de sécurité — Élysée, 22 Oct 2026.
- French weekend protests to be limited to union demos only, says Macron — BBC News, 22 Oct 2026.
- Live: France will ban 'illegitimate' protests in coming days, says Macron — France 24 (with Reuters, AP and AFP), 22 Oct 2026, modified 16:20.
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