Forty-six people were detained in Paris on Saturday over banned protests by far-right and anti-fascist groups, police told AFP.
They were among 97 people arrested in various areas in the center of the French capital, according to the latest police figures.
They were detained for participating in a group intended to commit violence and damage property, intentional group violence and carrying prohibited weapons, police said.
Police banned a protest organized by the far-right May 9 Committee, as well as an anti-fascist counter-demonstration called “No Nazis in Paris” that had been scheduled for Saturday afternoon.
The court upheld the ban due to the risk of public disorder.
When a far-right activist died in Lyon in February, police justified the move because a Nazi salute had been performed at a march in the Council on May 9 last year.
“While demonstrators must be able to gather in complete safety, bans must be respected and confrontations between far-right and far-left activists will not be tolerated,” police told AFP.
Nine far-left activists were arrested early Saturday afternoon on suspicion of being part of a group “intended to commit violence or damage property,” police sources said.
A total of 182 people were fined that day for not complying with the ban.
Raphael Ayma, spokesman for the May 9 committee and leader of a neo-fascist group in southern France, said: “If there are any disturbances, the only ones who should be blamed are the police.”
He added that the ban raised concerns about freedom of demonstration in France.
The council holds an annual protest on May 9 to mark the death of a far-right activist in 1994.
Sebastien Deyzieu accidentally fell to his death while hiding from police on the roof of a Paris building.
Police initially banned last year’s march, but the decision was overturned by the courts.
Later, a thousand far-right activists marched through Paris, most of them wearing masks and displaying symbols associated with neo-Nazi ideology.
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This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
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