Demonstration of October 31: employee and student unions sue on the route in Paris

Seven unions of employees and students attacked the police headquarters on Thursday in summary proceedings so that an order partially banning demonstrations on Saturday in Paris, between the Bastille and Place de la Nation as they wished, could be published "as quickly as possible", in order to have time to challenge it in court. On Wednesday, the CGT, FO, FSU and Solidaires, as well as Fage, the Student Union and Unef, indicated that the authorities had orally notified them of this ban and had proposed “the deportation of the demonstration on a route from Porte de Bagnolet to Porte de Charenton”, on the edge of the capital. The Île-de-France inter-union organization “refuses to fall into the trap set by the prefecture during the demonstration of October 24, consisting of issuing a ban order far too late to prevent us from contesting it before the administrative court,” declare the organizers of the demonstration in their press release.

A route which “allows you to avoid the city center” The summary procedure, consulted by AFP, requests that the orders relating to Saturday's demonstration be published “at the latest 24 hours before the start of this demonstration, i.e. no later than Friday October 30, 2026 at 12:00 p.m., the only measure allowing useful access to the summary judge”, an emergency procedure. On October 24, the unions had already had a route imposed on them on the outskirts of Paris, between the Portes d'Italie and Portes de Vincennes. “Our organizations are therefore taking the prefecture to court, from now on, to urge the latter to issue its banning order as quickly as possible, so that we can challenge it” with the aim of “enforcing the fundamental right to demonstrate, including the choice of route,” add the unions.

The inter-union is calling for a press conference on Friday at 10:00 a.m. at the Paris Labor Exchange “to talk about the situation and remind people that the right to demonstrate cannot be negotiated.” For its part, the Coordination of Yellow Vests announced in a press release that it had requested the prefecture for a meeting on Friday morning on the demonstration route that it declared Monday between the Places de la Bastille and de la Concorde. The route from the Porte de Charenton to the Porte de Bagnolet “allows us to avoid the city center, also to avoid damage and gives great visibility to the demonstrators”, justifies the Paris police prefect Patrice Faure in an interview published Thursday evening on the Parisien website.

The usual route of processions between the Places de la République, de la Bastille and de Nation, in the center of the capital, can no longer be continued “for a time” because “the conditions are not met”, he adds, for security issues linked to the risk of attack and to allow traders “to carry out their commercial activity”.

Machine-translated from French