Officials warn that violence could flare up on the 23rd Saturday of Yellow Vest marches, the first since the Notre-Dame fire, with protesters angry that nearly €1 billion was pledged to restore the cathedral while their demands remain unsatisfied.

After weeks of relative calm, with the marches attracting declining numbers, Interior minister Christophe Castaner said during a press conference on Friday domestic intelligence services had informed him of a potential return of rioters intent on wreaking havoc in Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier and Bordeaux, in a repeat of violent protests on March 16.

That day, during the violent protests against inequality that have been shaking up France for months, hooded gangs ransacked stores on Paris's famed Champs-Élysées avenue, set fire to a bank and forced Macron to cut short a ski trip in the Pyrénées.

"The rioters will be back tomorrow," Castaner told a press conference. "Their proclaimed aim: A repeat of March 16," he said. "The rioters have visibly not been moved by what happened at Notre-Dame."

For many Yellow Vest protesters, the stinging sadness that came with the devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral has quickly given way to boiling anger.

Some of the activists said they cried in front of their TV sets as they watched the Gothic architectural masterpiece being consumed by flames Monday night and some even made small donations for the restoration of the iconic building, despite their struggles to make ends meet.

Outrage as €1bn pledged for Notre-Dame

But they felt outraged when, in just a few hours, billionaires pledged around one billion euros to help restore the damaged cathedral while their demands remain unsatisfied in their longstanding fight with the French government.

"You're there, looking at all these millions accumulating, after spending five months in the streets fighting social and fiscal injustice. It's breaking my heart," Ingrid Levavasseur, a founding leader of the movement, told the Associated Press ahead of another round of planned protests across France this weekend.

Castaner said 60,000 police officers will be mobilised on Saturday across France, and planned marches that would have come near the medieval church on the central island on the Seine River had been banned, while one march from Saint-Denis, north of Paris, to Jussieu University on the Left Bank, had been authorised.

"What happened at Notre-Dame is obviously a deplorable tragedy. But nobody died," Levavasseur said. "I've heard someone speaking of national mourning. Are they out of their minds?"

FRANCE 24