Clashes have erupted in Paris, Marseille and other cities after tens of thousands of demonstrators, some in Halloween fancy dress, marched across France in a third wave of protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services.
About 320,000 people – down from an estimated 410,000 last weekend – took part in rallies around the country, the interior ministry said, including 70,000 in Paris who marched along boulevards on the south-eastern outskirts, avoiding the city centre.
As evening approached and the largely peaceful demonstrations came to an end, police in several cities fired teargas and stun grenades to disperse crowds joined – as on the previous Saturday – by groups of masked rioters.
France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said earlier this week 70,000 police and gendarmes, including elite units, would be deployed in an effort to quell violence on the protests’ sidelines, warning that Saturday looked like “a very high risk” day.
The Paris protesters set off peacefully from the Porte de Bagnolet near the ring road, holding placards with slogans including “No need for teargas to make our future look bleak” and “Disguised as an angry citizen for Halloween”, as a helicopter flew overhead
On and around its destination, the Porte de Charenton, dozens of masked people dressed in black used hammers to pry up paving stones and hurl them at police, and at least one incendiary device was thrown at security forces, French media reported.
Police responded with teargas and baton charges. “A hardcore of several hundred rioters” was attacking police with projectiles including a molotov cocktail, the Paris police prefecture said. Officers were “manoeuvring to restore public order”, it added.
In Lyon protesters threw projectiles at police, prompting officers to fire teargas, and in Toulouse police used water cannon against an unauthorised protest that drew several thousand people, mostly young demonstrators.
The marches brought together school students, who have been calling for better conditions for a month, trade unions and gilets jaune (yellow vests) protesters united in anger at the cost of living, widening inequalities and Emmanuel Macron’s government.
“The French economy is doing badly no matter what happens, because today we’re being run by a group of incompetents who juggle billions while families are struggling with a few cents,” said one protester on the Paris march, Jérôme Rodrigues. “That’s why we’re here, to keep shouting our demands louder and louder.”
A protester in Nantes, Camille Guérin, said: “We say no to the cost of living, no to the far right, yes to high school students’ demands, yes to giving citizens a voice.”
Saturday’s rallies came two weeks after widespread street violence and looting rocked numerous French cities during a first wave of mass protest on 17 October that became one of the worst days of civil unrest in the country’s recent history.
Student protesters vowed to stage new high school and university blockades on Tuesday and Thursday. “Then we will join the 5 November demonstration called by workers and trade unions,” said Sabrine Kharbach of the Union Étudiante, a student organisation.
Protests also took place elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, police fired water cannon to disperse protesters who hurled firework and other projectiles at the end of youth-led protests organised by a group called “Gen Z regelt!” (Gen Z will sort this).
Thousands of police were deployed across the country, with tensions rising as evening fell after mostly peaceful demonstrations for “for education, health, the climate and an affordable life” in dozens of cities.
In the western city of Cologne, police fired water cannon to disperse a crowd after saying protesters had targeted officers with fireworks, and a march was also temporarily halted in Frankfurt after protesters set off fireworks.
In Berlin, protesters hurled bottles and eggs while protesters set barricades ablaze in Hamburg, and police were using pepper spray on demonstrators in some places, the newspaper Bild reported.
Police were also on alert in Barcelona after an anonymous TikTok network called Blocus urged new gatherings, and in Italy after recent clashes with protesters in Milan, Turin and Bologna.
