PARIS.- France's third straight weekend of protests ended on Saturday, October 31, with a final tally far calmer than a week earlier but a violent nightcap in Paris: 565 arrests nationwide by 9:00 p.m., a gendarme struck by a Molotov cocktail, and a curfew in parts of the capital as police braced for Halloween-night gatherings.
The Interior Ministry counted 320,000 marchers across France, including 70,000 in Paris. The youth unions behind the marches claimed nearly 500,000 nationwide, including about 200,000 in Paris. Either way, turnout fell from the 410,000 counted on October 24 and the 550,000 counted on October 17. Arrests also fell sharply: the ministry reported 422 arrests shortly after 7:00 p.m., 520 by 8:00 p.m. and 565 by 9:00 p.m., against about 1,000 a week earlier. Police carried out 40,000 checks, 15,000 of them around Paris, and more than 40 metro stations in the capital were closed.
The evening turn in eastern Paris
The marches were mostly calm during the day — the ministry called the situation "generally calm" in the afternoon, with just 27 arrests by 2:00 p.m. against 217 at the same hour a week earlier. From about 5:00 p.m., the mood changed in eastern Paris, where protesters threw paving stones and incendiary devices at police, and officers answered with tear gas. Tear gas was also used in Lyon and Toulouse as demonstrations dispersed.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the marches had gone "well" despite what he called the "unheard-of violence" of rioters he blamed on the far left. He called a Molotov cocktail thrown at a gendarme an "attempted murder"; the officer was lightly injured. The Paris police prefecture estimated a hard core of several hundred rioters and protesters remained after the organised march officially ended, still throwing projectiles at officers.
Curfew and what comes next
With Halloween evening feared as a pretext for further clashes, a curfew applies in parts of Paris from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday night, and calls to gather at Châtelet in central Paris circulated online. Student unions have called for blockades of schools and universities on Tuesday, ahead of a wider mobilisation already planned for November 5.
The rallies began last month as a high-school student movement protesting neglected buildings, teacher shortages and a university admissions system seen as unfair to disadvantaged students, and have since drawn in trade unions and the yellow-vest movement over the cost of living, police violence and racism. The immediate trigger was the racist attack in Trappes on October 23, in which a gunman killed one person and wounded at least five, including a 12-year-old girl. Saturday's figures are provisional, and the final arrest count may still rise — but the direction is clear: fewer marchers, fewer arrests, and a night that stayed tense rather than exploding.
Fuentes: Nacionale, 31 de octubre de 2026 (datos del Ministerio del Interior, AFP, Le Figaro, La Dépêche); The Sun, 31 de octubre de 2026; Kuwait Times (AFP), 31 de octubre de 2026.