70,000 Officers Guard 400,000 Protesters in France

Families across France faced a heavily policed public space on Saturday as authorities deployed more than 70,000 officers to manage nationwide demonstrations. The deployment resulted in boarded-up shops and closed museums in major cities, while the government estimated that at least 400,000 people took to the streets to support schoolchildren’s demands for repairs and staff. Trade unions asserted the turnout was double the official figure, citing 800,000 participants.

The primary goal of the march was to back high school students who began protesting in mid-September over crumbling buildings and staff shortages. The movement has expanded to include parents, teachers, and trade unions who also expressed anger over the high cost of living and heavy-handed policing. In Paris, at least 110,000 people marched along the eastern edge of the city. Many carried banners demanding the right to protest and criticizing the government's use of riot officers to target demonstrators rather than offering political solutions.

Violence broke out in specific areas despite the largely peaceful nature of the march. At Porte de Vincennes in Paris, groups of masked men threw glass bottles and stones at police. Officers responded with teargas, water cannon, and stun grenades. Similar clashes occurred in Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, Nantes, Toulouse, and Marseille, where bin fires were lit and teargas was fired to keep protesters from reaching city centers.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez reported 135 arrests across the country. Police confiscated various items, including metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana sword, and airsoft weapons. The government feared a repeat of the previous Saturday, which saw one of the most violent days of unrest in years, with public buildings burned and at least 2,700 people arrested.

The crisis stems from student protests that started in mid-September against leaking roofs and overcrowded classrooms. Police investigations are currently underway after some children and protesters were injured by explosive police weaponry. President Emmanuel Macron faces a political challenge in his final months in office after banning non-union demonstrations he deemed illegitimate and keeping protesters away from city centers.

In Orléans, thousands of people marched against a congress held by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. The crowd shouted slogans demanding Macron resign and Le Pen be put in prison. Some demonstrators wore yellow vests to recall the 2018 and 2019 gilets jaunes protests. Jérôme Rodrigues, a key figure from that earlier movement, stated that the government pushes demonstrators to the edge of the city to keep them away from places of power. He predicted demonstrations would continue each weekend.

Nadège, a 43-year-old communications worker in Paris, said she was teargassed during a peaceful demonstration the previous weekend. She described the current atmosphere as one where people are afraid to use their legal right to protest. A 21-year-old student from a blockaded Paris science faculty said the government is increasingly living in an authoritarian regime by trying to stop the democratic right to protest in the street.