Hundreds of Thousands March Across France in Largely Peaceful Protests as Macron Faces Crisis

Paris: Hundreds of thousands of people marched across France on Saturday backing school students’s demands for more teachers and repairs to crumbling buildings, as President Emmanuel Macron faces a deepening social and political crisis in his final months in office.

The government estimated at least 400,000 marchers nationwide, while trade unions put the figure at roughly double. In Paris, officials counted at least 110,000 people along the city’s eastern edge. The interior ministry reported almost 1,000 arrests, and more than 70,000 police were deployed, with shops boarded up and many museums shut. The government had feared a repeat of the previous Saturday, which brought one of the most violent days of unrest in years, with public buildings burned, hundreds of shops looted and at least 2,700 people arrested.

The atmosphere in Paris was largely lighthearted, with brass bands and families present, though marchers also voiced anger over the cost of living and what they called heavy-handed policing of student protests. According to reports, at the march’s end at Porte de Vincennes, groups of masked men dressed in black allegedly threw bottles and stones at police, who responded with tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades. Riot police also charged a larger crowd with batons. Police fired tear gas in Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse, and bins were set alight in Marseille. At least two people, in Clermont-Ferrand and Toulouse, were seriously injured, one reportedly losing fingers.

Many protesters criticised President Macron for banning non-union demonstrations his government deemed illegitimate and for keeping marchers away from city centres. Radical left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said the president must give in and address the social malaise or face weekly protests, and former gilets jaunes (yellow vest) figure Jerome Rodrigues predicted the demonstrations would continue.

The crisis began in mid-September when students aged 15 to 18 protested staff shortages and crumbling schools, growing into the biggest youth movement in years. Police investigations are under way into injuries caused by explosive weapons to multiple students during the protests.