France reports 410,000 protesters amid clashes in Paris and Marseille
Paris shopfronts were boarded up and major cultural venues closed for the day as France deployed 70,000 police and gendarmes to prevent renewed unrest.
- France's Interior Ministry reported 410,000 people participated in nationwide demonstrations, with 110,000 in Paris protesting rising living costs and inequality.
- While the main marches were largely peaceful, clashes erupted after dark in Paris, where riot police used water cannon and tear gas against hundreds of youths.
- In Marseille, several stores were ransacked and youths clashed with security forces; similar unrest was also reported in other cities like Lyon and Toulouse.
- The Interior Minister deployed 70,000 police officers and alleged that far-left activists and criminal gangs were responsible for instigating the violence.
France’s Interior Ministry reported 410,000 participants in nationwide demonstrations on Saturday (October 24, 2026), as largely peaceful marches were followed by clashes after dark in Paris and Marseille.
At the main march on Paris’s southeastern edge, at least 110,000 protesters denounced rising living costs and growing inequality.
Unions put the countrywide turnout at double the ministry’s figure.
The authorities assigned 70,000 police officers and gendarmes to the operation, 10,000 more than on 17 October.
They acknowledged having underestimated the scale of the unrest that day and increased security to prevent a repeat.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described a lower level of violence than during the previous weekend’s looting and vandalism.
“What changed was anticipation,” he told reporters.
Riot police in Paris used water cannon and tear gas against about 500 hooded youths after the main procession ended and the mood deteriorated sharply.
The youths eventually dispersed on a cold, rainy evening.
In Marseille, France’s second city, two jewellery shops were among several stores ransacked, according to police.
Youths also set fire to rubbish bins to obstruct roads and threw bottles and rocks at security forces.
Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Rennes and Toulouse also experienced clashes.
Far-left activists and criminal gangs were trying to stir up trouble, Nuñez alleged.
“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.
His account also included attempts by far-right activists to confront leftist groups in the southern cities of Nice and Montpellier, raising the possibility of a new front in the unrest.
The first authorised march of the day ended peacefully in Orléans, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Paris.
It opposed Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, whose party congress is taking place in the city.
Tensions had also been heightened by a shooting west of Paris on Friday.
One person was killed and four others, including a 12-year-old girl, were wounded by a gunman suspected of acting out of Islamophobic hatred.
Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of Saint-Denis and a member of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party, said: “We have come to tell the far right, face-to-face, that we are not afraid.”
School conditions had been the initial concern when small student demonstrations began in the Paris suburbs last month.
The protests soon expanded into opposition to the government’s economic policies and inspired demonstrations in neighbouring countries.
Mélenchon, the hard-left leader who joined the Paris march, predicted that protests would continue until President Emmanuel Macron addressed social problems in France, one of the world’s richest nations.
Macron’s term ends next year.
“Given the current situation, I think he will come to understand that this will happen again every week,” Mélenchon told reporters.
“There is still time for (Macron) to give in. After that, the only thing left to him will be the exit door.”
Many demonstrators regarded the government’s response to the previous weekend’s disorder as excessive.
Soldiers were sent to patrol the Champs-Élysées, a grand Paris boulevard lined with luxury shops and restaurants.
Among those criticising the response was Clara Lebbadi, a 22-year-old arts student.
“We shed tears for shops, not for the people who are being impoverished all year round,” she said.
“My friend and I almost didn’t come because we were scared, but we came precisely because it’s important not to let repression win,” she added.
Tourists were frustrated by precautionary day-long closures at the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Paris Opera.
More than 20 metro stations were shut and shopkeepers boarded up their premises, giving much of central Paris the appearance of a city under lockdown.
Xavier Dolliole, a tourist from New Orleans in the United States, said: “Everything’s boarded up and we’re not quite sure where we should be.”
After thousands of shops and businesses around France suffered damage or looting the previous weekend, business groups called on retailers to remain closed.
Oskar, the manager of a Kiton boutique in Paris, explained: “There are hardly any customers, so it’s not really worth staying open.”
Belgian police and anti-government demonstrators clashed in Brussels on Saturday, with officers using tear gas and pepper spray.
Protests were also held in Albania, while several Italian cities saw demonstrations for a second weekend.
Source: Reuters
