After days of serious civil unrest in dozens of French cities, Tour de France organizers have promised that the race will be "focused" and "careful" when the Tour returns to its home country on Monday afternoon.

The 193-km-long, third stage of the 2023 Tour will start in Amorebieta in the Basque Country and cross the French border at Anday this afternoon at 16:00 Central European Time.

On Sunday evening, the outbreak of mayhem appears to have eased compared to earlier in the week, with overnight arrests in France reportedly down to 150 from 700 the night before. A 24-year-old firefighter was killed in the town of Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, while extinguishing several cars that had been set on fire, but it is not clear whether the incident was related to the mayhem.

Pierre-Yves Touaud, assistant director of the Tour de France, told L'Équipe magazine on Monday.

Touaud said he is in constant contact with the French regional authorities, the Interior Ministry, and the French police, who are in charge of Tour security.

Normally, 23,000 gendarmes are deployed in charge of Tour security, and police announced early last week that they would increase the number of outriders before the race to ensure that protesters do not block the route. As a result, two bikes from the French gendarmerie's intervention brigade will ride in front of the Tour de France peloton, an additional measure to reduce the risk of protests disrupting the race.

"The two bikes will function as a duo," the gendarmerie captain told team managers, according to Reuters. 'Our goal is to react immediately and avoid any interruption of the race.'

The 2022 Tour de France has been disrupted by climate change activists, and more disruption is expected this year. Earlier this year, the French environmental group "Dernière Rénovation" announced that it would also protest at this year's Tour. During the third stage of the Dauphiné this past June, the race was briefly halted midway through when protesters blocked the route, but the race ended uneventfully.

Speaking to L'Equipe, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques regional authorities in southwestern France (where the finishing city of Bayonne is located) said that they would "use the forces of law and order" to provide security and that they would increase police vigilance "given the current situation. However, there will be no further protection of the race, other than additional measures already planned since last week.