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Authorities vow firm action against violence as yellow vest and student movements announce widespread demonstrations.

France’s interior minister has announced the deployment of 70,000 police officers across the country in preparation for planned protests on Saturday, coinciding with Halloween.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Thursday that security measures, including the use of armoured vehicles and water cannon introduced last week, will be strengthened.

Nationwide protests over the rising cost of living have rocked France, with some degenerating into large-scale looting and riots.

“The day of October 31 presents a very high risk of public disorder,” Nunez said at a news conference.

About 70,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilised, matching the number deployed at last week’s protests, he said, calling the move an “exceptional measure”.

Demonstrations last Saturday drew about 410,000 protesters nationwide, according to the interior ministry, though unions put the figure at roughly double that. The ministry said more than 2,700 people were arrested a week earlier.

Warning on Halloween masking

The “yellow vest” movement and student unions have called for a new day of protests on Saturday.

Nunez warned demonstrators against using Halloween as “a legitimate reason to hide one’s face” to cause disturbances in public areas.

He told reporters demonstrations would be allowed, but “not in city centres, where there is a risk of public disorder”.

The interior minister issued a warning to far-right groups that clashed with left-wing protesters at rallies in about 15 French cities.

“We will tolerate no excesses,” he said, and pledged an “extremely firm” response.

Nunez accused the “ultra-left” movement and some yellow vest activists of circulating messages on social media promoting demonstrations on Halloween evening that called for a “revolution”.

“These gatherings will be banned,” he said.

The yellow vest movement has already announced a “third act” of its protests on Halloween and called for demonstrations outside the National Assembly and all town halls in the country.

KATIE Price has taken a subtle swipe at Lee Andrews after she ended their marriage last month.

The former glamour model is currently bracing herself for a “messy” divorce battle with her ex as the conman vows to return to the UK.

The Sun revealed that Katie ended their marriage via WhatsApp last month after finding out he had just £2.22 in his bank account.

Katie has now has taken another step towards being entirely free from Lee with a social media swipe.

She has deleted all of their photos together and it looks as though she has blocked him, too.

Katie has likely blocked Lee because all of his comments and likes have disappeared from her posts.

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Lee was recently released from the notorious Al Awir prison after a four-month stint, but is now eyeing up flying back to his home country.

The conman launched a Go Get Funding page last week in a bid to collect bail cash so he can return to Britain.

And as Lee vows to fly back to England, Katie is understood to be “naturally worried” that Lee will come after her money, in what could be one of showbiz’s messiest divorces.

A source previously said: “Katie is determined not to be in financial trouble again.

“She’s been working really hard to get enough income to be comfortable – with her OnlyFans and various other projects, but she is all to aware of how easily it can be lost.

“There is a real worry Lee is going to try and take half of what she’s worth.”

They added: “She does not want to be his next con, and is hoping they can split amicably.”

Earlier this month, Lee appeared to fake his own death on social media, which left fans baffled.

Lee’s death hoax Instagram story, which was posted to his account in the early hours, was swiftly deleted.

Alongside a black and white picture of Lee posing in a car, the post said: “With a huge heart of sadness.

“And this heartfelt message, we say our final goodbyes to this beautiful soul, to our loving Lee who has tragically passed away.”

Lee’s ex Alana Percival, who he dated in 2025, took to her own Instagram to address the post and accused him of faking his own death via the post.

But Lee later took to his account to share another post with a red cross over the original image. 

Lee added: “Please don’t believe any of this I have been clearly targeted for the death hoax by sick individuals. 

“I’m very much alive and well this is terrible as I have family that had to see it.

“My account is back with me.”

New Delhi, India — India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has returned to the streets of central New Delhi, leading dozens of members of parliament demanding the election chief’s resignation, as protests gather momentum.

Gandhi, heir to India’s most influential political dynasty, is seeking to turn a summer youth uprising into a broader challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade-long dominance of Indian politics, putting the Hindu nationalist government under growing pressure.

In a press briefing on Monday, Gandhi said the Modi government had put the capital city “in jail”.

The youth-led “Cockroach” movement that forced out the education minister in July has also threatened to protest on Tuesday if it is not allowed to rally at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, which was the focus of summer demonstrations.

Joining Gandhi’s Congress party, other opposition forces and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) are thousands of students from left-wing organisations. As the government braces for further protests, security forces have been detaining thousands of students every day, with allegations of custodial violence casting a climate of fear over the capital.

‘No constraints on Modi’

India’s Election Commission, a supposedly autonomous body tasked with overseeing the world’s largest electorate, has been criticised after revelations that its chief, Gyanesh Kumar, frequently overruled concerns raised by the other two election commissioners about the integrity of changes to the voter database.

For months, India’s opposition parties have argued that the election commission is compromised, sabotaging elections at the behest of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its electoral benefit. The BJP denies the allegations.

Since June last year, the commission has been revising and updating statewide voter lists. It has since removed more than 130 million names, which critics say has disproportionately deprived minorities and other vulnerable groups in India of the right to vote.

Gandhi has called for the Chief Election Commissioner to be tried for treason. “We will not spare you,” he said, referring to Kumar, at his Monday press briefing.

Opposition politicians allege that protest rallies by leaders including Gandhi have been met with violent and brutal force, as seen in videos showing them being detained.

“[The protesters] came with love in their hearts, not hatred or anger,” Gandhi said, referring to a  protest on Saturday. “They were beaten, both by cops and BJP goons.”

“Narendra Modi … cannot silence India’s voice. These cowards cannot intimidate us. They will have to step aside,” he wrote on X, calling on people from all walks of life to join the protest on Monday.

Analysts say circumstances this time around are starkly different to the summer protests, when CJP-led demonstrators demanded the resignation of then-Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Asim Ali, a political analyst in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that the mobilisation of the wider opposition would not stop, but the Modi government was unlikely to back down.

“The crackdown this time on students is making it apparent that it would be tougher for young protesters this time, and students can’t get beaten up and dragged violently daily,” he said. “Going forward, the opposition parties stand to be the front face of the protests, and they need to lead from the front.”

Since 1975, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of national emergency suspending civil liberties, “India saw more civil politics grow into mainstream, where opposition parties were allowed space,” Ali said.

He added that after five decades, “those democratic gains have vanished – and there are no constraints on this government by independent institutions.”

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, said he has seen New Delhi at the centre of “several big opposition political rallies, held in areas near the parliament, hosting hundreds of thousands of people,” when the police did not interfere, unlike the crackdowns this year.

Kidwai said that the violent detention of members of parliament, in particular, was worrying.

“We are seeing a big change from when politicians were more tolerant of dissent,” he added.

Cat-and-mouse chases

With an unprecedented security deployment in central New Delhi designed to prevent protest, youth leaders are turning to new tactics.

Neha Bora, the president of All India Students’ Association (AISA), a left-wing group affiliated with the Communist Party of India, has often tricked Delhi police in order to stage protests.

Bora, a post-doctoral student of theatre, came to national prominence for her fiery speeches in the July protests, becoming a leading face of the Gen Z movement challenging Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics.

Aditi Thakur, a 23-year-old student in the capital, has turned on notifications for all of Bora’s posts on social media. “A call to protest can come anytime, anywhere,” she told Al Jazeera.

Bora does not reveal when or where she is going to stage a protest until just 30 minutes before, to avoid detentions by the police. Her supporters are alerted via social media to join her at a given location in the capital.

On Sunday, she picked a congested street near central Delhi — and was able to jump several barricades to reach the heavily secured Parliament Street, before being chased down and dragged into a police van.

Even Thakur couldn’t catch her, she told Al Jazeera, laughing. “These are guerrilla times, but peacefully. If the government cracks down on us, we also need to adapt,” she said. “It is a fun cat-and-mouse chase every day. I’m hooked on it.”

The Gandhi-led Congress is also adopting similar measures, holding flash rallies at unannounced venues, then running away from police.

The mood is changing

A defining feature of the July protests – a watershed moment for wrestling concessions from the government – was Gen Z’s humour in the face of police brutality.

Now, protesters are prepared for a more serious confrontation, even if demonstrations remain peaceful, say analysts.

“We are seeing that humour changing more into anger this time,” Asim Ali said.

The biggest challenge for the government is disruption in central New Delhi, which, Ali said, the government cannot allow on a daily basis. The area is home to most federal government offices, as well as being a major business hub.

Protesters know that too, and that gives them leverage.

“We are seeing this movement grow into a bigger anti-government, anti-Modi movement,” Ali said.