Fresh clashes rock France as protesters march on
Authorities had deployed 70,000 security personnel across the country for the new marches, called to protest the cost of living.
FRENCH Gendarmes detain a protester during a demonstration in favor of purchasing power, the protection of public services, and fiscal and social justice, in Paris on 24 October 2026.
Photograph courtesy of sAMEER AL-DOUMY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
PARIS, France (AFP) — Clashes erupted across France on Saturday as protesters took to the streets, a week after marches that degenerated into violence and prompted a firm security backlash from President Emmanuel Macron, who is scrambling to restore order.
Police arrested nearly 1,000 people as officers faced "an extremely elevated level of violence" from black-clad "ultra-left" extremists, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
Riot police squads fired tear gas at protesters in the capital as well as in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes.
Two people were "seriously" injured, Nunez said: one man in Toulouse, who reportedly had fingers blown off, and another person in Clermont-Ferrand. He did not give details of either case.
Authorities had deployed 70,000 security personnel across the country for the new marches, called to protest the cost of living.
The violence came a week after rioting that saw public buildings vandalized, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested, casting a pall over the country six months before an election to choose Macron's successor.
Nunez said Saturday's outcome was more "positive" than a week ago, with more police on the streets acting more rapidly, conducting more pre-demonstration checks and better protecting businesses.
But there was widespread anger at the government over a protest crackdown viewed as an assault on the right to protest.
Police battle 'rioters'
Saturday's demonstrations drew between 410,000 and 800,000 people across the country, according to different estimates by authorities and the organizing CGT union.
The main Paris march had between 110,000 and 250,000 attendees, according to those sources.
Macron's government has ordered police to prevent protesters reaching city centers, where shops are concentrated, and in Paris and some other cities, partial curfews were imposed in certain urban zones.
The French president had ordered non-union demonstrations be banned as "illegitimate."
In Paris, where many shops had boarded up windows to prevent looting, and the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay museums shut for the day, the main demonstration passed off largely peacefully.
The march had been pushed to the capital's southeast rim under a last-minute order by authorities.
Afterwards, though, clashes broke out as the crowd was dispersing, with Nunez blaming "500 rioters" at the back of the march.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists saw police charge several times, blasting tear gas and using batons against some, mostly young, protesters.
"They were just taking people down, you know, beating protesters," one demonstrator bleeding from a baton blow to his face, who gave his first name as David, told AFP.
Thousands of protesters in the western city of Nantes broke through lines of police firing tear gas and a water cannon to reach the city center, an AFP journalist witnessed.