Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across France on Saturday to protest rising living costs and inequality, with clashes breaking out in Paris, Marseille and several other cities despite a major security operation.
The Interior Ministry said about 410,000 people participated in the nationwide demonstrations, although trade unions estimated the turnout was twice as high.
The largest rally took place on the southeastern outskirts of Paris, where at least 110,000 people gathered to denounce rising living costs and growing economic inequality.
However, tensions escalated after the demonstration ended, prompting riot police to fire tear gas and water cannon at a group of about 500 hooded youths. The group eventually dispersed amid cold and rainy conditions.
In Marseille, France’s second-largest city, youths set fire to rubbish bins to block roads and threw stones and bottles at security forces. Police said several shops, including two jewellery stores, were looted.
Clashes were also reported in Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, Rennes, Nantes and Toulouse.
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Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said groups considered a security risk had repeatedly broken away from the main demonstrations to engage in violence.
“In almost every march we saw the formation of these high-risk groups. They broke away from the main body and sought to commit acts of violence,” he said, accusing far-left activists and criminal gangs of attempting to incite unrest.
Security Tightened Across Paris
Authorities deployed 70,000 police officers and gendarmes nationwide, 10,000 more than the previous week, after admitting that they had underestimated the scale of the unrest on October 17.
Nunez said Saturday’s violence was less severe than the previous week’s disturbances, when looting and vandalism caused widespread damage.
“What changed was anticipation,” he said.
He also alleged that far-right activists had attempted to provoke confrontations with left-wing groups in the southern cities of Nice and Montpellier, raising concerns about further unrest.
Much of central Paris took on the appearance of a city under lockdown, with shopkeepers boarding up their premises, museums closing and more than 20 metro stations shut.
Business groups urged retailers to remain closed following damage and looting that affected thousands of shops and businesses across France the previous weekend.
Several major cultural attractions, including the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Paris Opera, closed as a precaution, leaving some tourists frustrated.
Protests Spread Beyond France
The unrest began with small student demonstrations in suburban Paris last month over school conditions before expanding into a broader movement against the government’s economic policies.
The protests have also inspired demonstrations in neighbouring countries. In Brussels, Belgian police used tear gas and pepper spray during clashes with anti-government protesters on Saturday, while demonstrations took place in several Italian cities for a second consecutive weekend and in Albania.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party, joined the Paris demonstration and predicted that the protests would continue until President Emmanuel Macron addressed the country’s growing social discontent.
Macron’s presidential mandate expires next year.
“Given the current situation, I think he will come to understand that this will happen again every week. There is still time for (Macron) to give in. After that, the only thing left to him will be the exit door,” Mélenchon told reporters.
Some demonstrators accused the government of overreacting to the previous week’s unrest, as soldiers were deployed to patrol the Champs-Élysées, a major boulevard lined with luxury shops and restaurants.
In Orléans, about 120 kilometres south of Paris, an authorised march against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party passed peacefully as the party held its congress in the city.
The demonstrations followed a shooting west of Paris on Friday in which a gunman suspected of acting out of Islamophobic hatred killed one person and wounded four others, including a 12-year-old girl.
