France makes mass arrests after protest clashes

French authorities said roughly 410,000 people joined demonstrations across the country, with nearly 1,000 arrests after clashes in Paris, Marseille and other cities turned violent.

The interior ministry put national turnout at 410,000, while trade unions said participation was about twice that. In Paris, the ministry said at least 110,000 people joined the main march on the city’s southeastern edge to protest rising living costs and inequality.

What changed by the end was not the grievance but the level of force around it. Interior minister Laurent Nunez said officers faced “an extremely elevated level of violence” from black-clad “ultra-left” groups, and said 135 arrests were made before the main marches began. Police also seized fireworks, slingshots, improvised weapons, metal balls, lead pellets, airsoft guns and a katana sword, according to his account.

Paris police later reported 65 arrests in the capital. Nunez said two people were seriously injured, including a man in Toulouse who reportedly lost fingers. He did not provide fuller details of either injury.

The government’s response was large and visible. Authorities deployed 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, 10,000 more than on 17 October, after officials said they had underestimated the earlier unrest. Large parts of central Paris were effectively shut down, with businesses boarded up, museums closed and more than 20 metro stations suspended. The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Paris Opera were among the institutions that closed.

In Marseille, police said protesters set fire to rubbish bins, threw stones and bottles at officers, and looted several businesses, including two jewellery shops. Confrontations were also reported in Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, Rennes, Nantes and Toulouse.

The protests began as student demonstrations over school staffing and building conditions, then widened into a broader challenge to Emmanuel Macron’s government. That matters politically because the dispute is no longer confined to one sector or one policy. It now tests whether the French state can contain disorder without addressing the social complaints drawing large crowds into the streets.

Nunez said the violence was less severe than on 17 October and credited better anticipation. Protesters and opposition figures, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon, argue the government has relied too heavily on repression. The available facts support one clear point: the state increased its security presence substantially, and large-scale disorder still broke out in multiple cities.