France to deploy 30,000 police officers amid fears of post-election violence
Around 30,000 police officers are set to be stationed throughout France on July 7 amid fears of violence following the final results of the crucial second round of a parliamentary snap election.
Gerald Darmanin, the interior minister, said 5,000 officers would be on duty in Paris and its surrounding areas to “ensure that the radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause mayhem.”
The minister said he will be “very careful” regarding security on Sunday evening, when the election results are scheduled to be announced.
Three candidates have already reported being targeted in attacks during their campaigns.
Four people were detained in connection with an assault on Wednesday evening, targeting government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot and her team as they were putting up campaign posters, Darmanin said.
Thevenot told Le Parisien, “We said to them, without being aggressive, that [defacing posters] was not allowed.”
Marie Dauchy, a member of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party (RN) in Savoie, also reported being assaulted by a shopkeeper at a market on Wednesday.
Furthermore, the 77-year-old deputy mayor of a small town near Grenoble, in southeastern France, was assaulted on Thursday morning while putting up a poster for Olivier Veran, a former spokesman for President Emmanuel Macron.
Veran denounced a “completely unprecedented context of violence in this campaign.”
The outcome of the second round of vote will decide if Le Pen’s far-right RN will achieve a parliamentary majority for the first time and take control of the next government in France, which is the second-largest economy in the euro zone.
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