More than 400,000 people marched across France on Saturday in a fresh wave of protests over school funding and the soaring cost of living, in the latest mass challenge to President Emmanuel Macron — and police arrested nearly 1,000 people as clashes broke out in Paris and other cities.
The Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 410,000, including 110,000 in Paris, while the CGT union that helped organize some of the protests estimated nearly 800,000 demonstrators, with 250,000 in the capital.
More than 70,000 security personnel were deployed across the country to secure high-risk areas, board up shops and keep march routes away from central government districts.
Tear gas and water cannons in Paris
The Paris march began peacefully but turned violent near its endpoint in the east of the city, around the Porte de Vincennes. Masked protesters hurled objects and fireworks at police, who answered with clouds of tear gas, deafening sound grenades and jets from water cannons. Officers with megaphones urged the crowds to disperse as tear-gas canisters landed among demonstrators.
Clashes were also reported in Lyon, Rennes, Marseille, Nantes and Grenoble. In Nantes, thousands broke through police lines to reach the city centre. Looting was reported on the sidelines of demonstrations in Marseille and Grenoble. In Cannes and Montpellier, far-right activists took to the streets seeking confrontations with people they described as "ultra-left" militants.
The unrest follows a week of rioting and looting during protests a week earlier, when at least 2,400 people were arrested across the country and authorities estimated that at least 3,000 businesses were damaged or looted in several cities.
A movement that started in a single high school
What began in mid-September as a blockade by students at a high school in Créteil, a Paris suburb, protesting teacher shortages and falling debris in their classrooms, has spread across France — drawing in students demanding more funding for education and workers struggling with fuel prices and the cost of living.
On October 17, a national day of action against the high cost of living drew about 550,000 people, according to the authorities, and ended in arson and looting in many cities. From the night of October 19, curfews — mostly for minors — were imposed in Paris, Lyon, Lille, Nice and other cities, and central Paris squares were placed under night-time bans.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered his resignation after the violence, but Macron refused it, saying he needed continuity in command of law enforcement. Nuñez told French radio he submitted his resignation because he is "responsible for everything that is happening" and said police strategy must adapt to "extremely mobile groups" of troublemakers and looters.
Yellow Vests call for October 31 — and Macron's approval hits 15 percent
The Yellow Vest movement, which staged disruptive protests against Macron in 2018 and forced him to scrap a planned fuel tax rise, has resurfaced alongside the student demonstrations and has called for nationwide protests on October 31, denouncing what it describes as an authoritarian drift and defending public freedoms.
The protests come as Macron, who cannot run for a third term in the presidential election due in about six months, faces a collapse in support. An Ipsos BVA-Cesi poll puts his approval rating at 15 percent, the lowest since he took office in 2017. The unrest is working in favor of Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Rally, who currently leads the polls.
Le Pen's party held a rally in Orléans to launch its presidential campaign, drawing thousands of counter-protesters — 13,000 according to police, twice that according to organizers.
Protests over the same issues — living costs, education and government policy — have also spread to Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal in recent weeks. Italy has deployed 500 soldiers to Milan following street violence there, and Spain saw more than 100 arrests in Barcelona on Saturday after a youth protest turned into looting and clashes with police.