The French authorities have used the anti-terror state of emergency to ban several activists from joining demonstrations against the government's labour reform this week. Unions have planned two days of protest and called strikes in the air transport, road freight, rail and oil sectors, reports RFI.
About a dozen members of two far-left organisations, Action Antifasciste (AFA) and Mouvement Interluttes indépendant (Mili), have received orders banning them from entering Paris's sixth, seventh, 14th and 15th arrondissements on 17 May, the day that a march against the controversial labour bill will pass through those areas.
They are also banned from being on or near the Place de la République, where the Up All Night protesters gather, between 6.00pm that day and 7.00am the next.
In the orders Paris police boss Michel Cadot cites a clause in the state of emergency law, introduced to fight terrorism after the Paris attacks, allowing him to forbid "any person seeking, by whatever means, to hinder the actions of the public authorities" from entering certain areas.
The persons named have "been noticed on numerous occasions during demonstrations, notably against police brutality and the labour code reform bill", giving reason to believe that they attend them with the intention of "participating in violent actions", Cadot says.
He also mentions the "weight of the terrorist threat".
The organisations claim that none of the individuals concerned have been arrested during the previous protests.
The state of emergency was also invoked in November to ban demonstrations during the Cop21 climate change conference in Paris and Paris police have issued a number of decrees restricting the activities of the Up All Night protests.
Clashes between groups of protesters and police and attacks on property have occurred on many of the anti-labour law protests and a school student was charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the western city of Nantes on Saturday.