Clashes, Fires and Looting Mark Nationwide French Protests Over Living Costs and School Conditions

By Saturday evening in central Paris, thick black smoke was rising from burning cars, bicycles and trash bins, and a newspaper kiosk had gone up in flames. Several shops had been looted. Some incidents were still unfolding as night came on, at the end of a day when hundreds of thousands of people marched across France over rising living costs and poor conditions in schools.

The numbers differ depending on who is counting. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 110 marches drew about 550,000 people nationwide and that about 400 people were arrested, most of them adults. Organizers, including the CGT labor union and student organizations, put turnout at about 800,000.

The worst of the Paris clashes came at the Place de la République, northeast of the city center. Police fired tear gas and water cannons at people in hoods and masks who were throwing fireworks, paving stones and other objects at officers. Several people were injured. At police request, many metro stations were closed, including those around the Champs-Elysées and near the presidential palace, parliament and government offices. Most demonstrators, though, joined a march toward northwestern Paris, singing the national anthem, waving flags, and playing trumpets and violins.

Elsewhere the damage fell heavily on public buildings. In Lyon, where about 20,000 people marched, a fire broke out inside a tourist office. In Marseille, some shops and a municipal police station were damaged, and protesters briefly forced their way into the City Hall lobby. Nuñez reported attacks by masked groups on local government buildings in Bordeaux, break-in attempts at the city halls of Lille and Calais and at a police station in Brest, and violence in Rennes, Toulouse, Montpellier and Grenoble. In Limoges, a middle-sized city in central France, City Hall was set on fire, and the flames were still raging Saturday evening.

Nuñez described those behind the violence as "extremely violent, radical far-left groups" that sought confrontations with police and targeted city halls and local government offices, and said offenders willing to loot shops had joined them. President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that there is "no place for violence in our Republic," and promised that those who vandalized property, attacked government offices and businesses, and looted town halls would be prosecuted and punished.

The marches answered calls on social media to revive the "yellow vest" movement, which began in 2018 over social injustice, and many marchers wore the fluorescent vests. Gasoline, energy and food prices have spiked in recent months. Sonia Mabrouk, 40, came from a western Paris suburb with her high school daughter, and said they were protesting "everything that's going wrong," especially neglected public services. A veteran of the yellow vest protests, she criticized policies that favor the rich and hit the poorest in their wallets. The CGT called for higher wages and pensions, lower prices and protection of public services. Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who backed the high school movement, marched in Paris. Student groups, who have been blockading schools since mid-September, urged supporters to join.

The day also revived scrutiny of policing. In Saint-Etienne, a young protester lost a hand, and authorities opened an investigation, Nuñez said. French media reported a police grenade explosion caused the injury; Nuñez declined to confirm that. In recent weeks France has seen thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries and schools set on fire as student protests spread nationwide and entered the presidential campaign. Severe wounds among some teenagers have been blamed on police riot-control weapons. Nuñez suspended one type of stun grenade against high school demonstrators after a 15-year-old lost a hand, but that suspension does not cover other protests, including Saturday's.

The Saint-Etienne investigation will test whether that partial restriction holds, as the unrest continues to shape the race for the presidency.