More Than 1,300 Arrested as Protests Across France Turn to Clashes
Seven Lights
More than 1,300 people were arrested across France after hundreds of thousands marched on Saturday in protests over the rising cost of living, school funding and policing, and after clashes followed the largely peaceful demonstrations into the night, officials said. The Interior Ministry counted 410,000 protesters, including 110,000 in Paris. Unions put the national figure at about 800,000.
Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds in several cities, including Paris, Lyon and Toulouse. Barricades were set alight in Marseille, where authorities in the Bouches-du-Rhone region said seven businesses were looted or damaged, and demonstrators tore boards from a shopfront in Bordeaux. In Lyon, police used tear gas grenades on a crowd that had gathered in an area declared off-limits by the local prefecture.
Two people were seriously injured, the interior minister, Laurent Nunez, said. A 20-year-old protester in Toulouse lost fingers on one hand when an explosive went off nearby, Franceinfo reported, citing the medic who treated him; a second injury was recorded in Clermont-Ferrand. Mr. Nunez said “high-risk groups” had broken away from the main marches to commit acts of violence, and said the arrest total would likely rise.
Some 70,000 police were deployed for a second consecutive weekend, with shops boarded up, museums closed and access to city centres restricted in Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse. Students, workers and retirees marched side by side, expressing anger at President Emmanuel Macron over purchasing power and what demonstrators described as inadequate resources for essential services. There was also widespread discontent with the government’s ban on non-union demonstrations it deemed illegitimate.
The authorities had feared a repeat of the previous Saturday, when public buildings were burned, hundreds of shops were destroyed and looted, and at least 2,700 people were arrested in some of the worst disorder in France’s modern history. Officials judged that scale to have been avoided this time. Protesters in Paris said frustration over taxes and stagnant living standards had persisted since Mr. Macron took office in 2017.
The government gave no immediate sign of concessions. Unions have called for further action, and the interior ministry kept forces on high alert as the unrest carried into the early hours of Sunday.