PARIS, October 24. /TASS/. The Paris police prefecture has banned trade unions from holding a procession along the agreed route from Place de la Bastille to Place de la Nation in the east of the city, radio station France Info quoted a source as saying.

According to it, the trade unions were offered an alternative route from Porte d'Italie to Porte de Vincennes on the outskirts of the capital. The trade unions plan to challenge the decision in the State Council -- the highest judicial instance for administrative cases.

Previously Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that the ministry would deploy around 70,000 police officers and gendarmes across the country on October 24. In many cities, prefects banned protests altogether. In Paris, only a trade union march against the decline in the people’s purchasing power was permitted.

On October 17, mass demonstrations against rising fuel prices and the decline in the purchasing power rolled through Paris and France. According to the organizers’ estimates, 800,000 people participated, while the police put the figure at 550,000, or twice as many as it expected. In some cities the protests deteriorated into riots and clashes with the police. Nunez vowed to continue to prosecute all participants in the ransacking and looting.