Yellow Vest activists schedule new nationwide protests for October 31

Yellow Vest activists have scheduled a new wave of protests for October 31, planning rallies and a sit-in outside the French parliament and city halls across the country. The announcement arrives a week after riots and looting broke out alongside large-scale demonstrations over the cost of living. Members of the largely rural movement expressed anger when Paris police unexpectedly changed the authorized route for a union-organized march, shifting it to the periphery of the capital.

In response, a Yellow Vest coordinator told reporters at Bastille square that the upcoming protests will focus on defending the freedom to demonstrate and all other public freedoms. Security forces remain on high alert in Paris as the date approaches. The movement frames its actions as a stand against what it describes as President Emmanuel Macron’s authoritarian drift.