French Interior Minister Reports 980 Arrests After Saturday Clashes

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced late Saturday that nearly 1,000 people had been detained in France. The figure comes as hundreds of thousands of people joined a new wave of nationwide protests that turned violent in the evening. Officials stated that the demonstrations began largely in peace but devolved into clashes in several major cities.

Police deployed tear gas and water cannon to clear crowds in multiple locations, including Paris. In Marseille, protesters set barricades on fire, while onlookers in Bordeaux tore boards from a shop. Authorities noted that the disorder was less severe than the widespread rioting and looting seen in the previous weekend, which marked some of the worst unrest in modern French history.

The interior ministry estimated that 410,000 people participated in the events. Unions placed the turnout at approximately 800,000. Police deployed about 70,000 officers and imposed restrictions in several cities to prevent the protests from sliding into chaos. The demonstrations focus on the cost of living and poor conditions in schools.

President Emmanuel Macron had decreed earlier in the week that only demonstrations organized by recognized trade unions would be permitted. Fast-track court hearings in recent days have led to hundreds of jail sentences for vandalism, arson, and looting. This legal push follows the violence of the prior week, when police were outnumbered and hundreds of businesses were looted or torched.

In Paris, tensions rose at the end of a march from Porte d'Italie to Porte de Vincennes. Police included an elite unit typically assigned to organized crime and counter-terrorism in their response. Some protesters built makeshift barricades and threw projectiles at officers. Police charged with batons at masked youths smashing the windows of a car dealership.

Nuñez stated that several thousand radical activists gathered at the rear of the Paris march. He identified approximately 500 of them as rioters, according to the AFP news agency. In Marseille, protesters set rubbish bins on fire and used metal sheets to block streets. In Lyon, police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd in an area the local prefecture had declared off-limits.

One protester in Lyon, who said there were around 150 people in the group, told reporters that visibility was poor due to the gas. The group consisted mostly of secondary school and university students. Nuñez added that two people were seriously injured during the events, one in Toulouse and the other in Clermont-Ferrand.

Demonstrators expressed deep frustration with the current government. A 26-year-old Paris protester named Zelie told the BBC that people were suffering and that the situation had become too much. Two masked teenagers said their generation felt abandoned by the government. One of them argued that poverty and police violence were driving the unrest, adding that protests would continue until demands were met.

Unrest extended beyond France's borders. Riot police fired tear gas at thousands of anti-government demonstrators in Tirana, Albania, and clashes were reported in Brussels. In Milan, hundreds of soldiers and police prevented protesters from gathering amid fears of a repeat of the previous week's violence. About 13,000 people also rallied peacefully in Orléans against the National Rally party.

Last weekend, approximately 550,000 people demonstrated against rising fuel prices and living costs. More than 2,500 arrests followed that event, and over 2,000 shops and businesses were directly affected. The Chambers of Commerce and Industry estimated the damage at hundreds of millions of euros. About 1,000 police officers were injured, and one demonstrator's hand was reportedly blown off by a crowd-control grenade.