France arrests 135 as fresh protests begin across the country amid heightened security

France's Interior Minister Laurent Nunez reported 135 arrests and the seizure of a range of weapons on Saturday as security forces deployed for a second consecutive weekend of nationwide demonstrations, saying there had been no major incident at that stage.

Nunez said officers had confiscated metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana and airsoft weapons ahead of the marches. Officers had been given orders to prevent renewed street violence. Earlier on Saturday, Nunez posted on social media that he had visited personnel belonging to the Paris intervention unit who make up some of the contingent mobilised in Paris. "Our forces are mobilised, our setup is in place. We are ready," he said.

The Yellow Vest movement, one of the key groups behind the protests against the high cost of living, used Saturday's gathering at Paris's Bastille square to announce a further national rally on 31 October, calling for a sit-in outside parliament and outside city halls nationwide in protest at what it described as the authoritarian drift of President Macron. Members refused a police order to shift their route to the edge of the capital, though unions accepted the restriction. After being central to protests from 2018 to 2020 against rising fuel prices, the movement went into abeyance but has recently come to the fore once again amid the current wave of demonstrations sweeping France.

As the unrest spread, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ordered 500 additional soldiers to Milan, where they will join hundreds already stationed and support some 5,000 police and other law enforcement personnel in a bid to prevent the looting and violence seen at protests last week. Authorities there are conducting drone surveillance, carrying out checks at railway stations and monitoring potential calls to violence online.

Security is also high in Rome, with luxury shopping streets locked down and stepped-up controls around the Circus Maximus and Piazza del Popolo ahead of planned demonstrations. Aside from Rome and Milan, demonstrations have been called in at least seven other cities.

Albania, Spain and Portugal are also seeing waves of protests, with demonstrations planned on Saturday over long-standing issues ranging from education deficiencies in Albania to affordable housing shortages in Spain and Portugal.

Tourists in Paris on Saturday faced a number of closures amid security fears. The Louvre, the Orsay Museum and the Picasso Museum are all closed for the day, as is the Grand Palais, where a major exhibition of French painter Paul Cézanne is currently taking place. The contemporary art fair Art Basel Paris, which opened to the public on Friday, closed its doors the day after, with the entire weekend programme cancelled.