Hundreds of thousands march in France protests
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The gist
Hundreds of thousands marched across France over living costs and school funding, with nearly 1,000 arrested.
The unrest has widened from student complaints into a nationwide test for Macron.
Background
The demonstrations began last month as small student protests in suburban Paris over school conditions, including teacher shortages and poor facilities, then grew into a nationwide movement against the state of the economy. France's CGT labor union and other activists joined as students paused for a fall break, adding demands over rising living costs and public services. The latest marches came a week after rioting that saw public buildings vandalised, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested, ahead of a presidential vote in six months to choose a successor to Emmanuel Macron, France's president, after 10 years.
How it unfolded
- Oct 17, 2026Protests over the high cost of living, fuel prices and education funding took place in Paris and nationwide; rioters set cars on fire at Canal Saint Martin in Paris.
- Oct 18, 2026Clashes broke out between protesters and riot police during a march against the high cost of living in Paris as part of nationwide demonstrations.
- Oct 19, 2026More than 500,000 people took to the streets over the weekend of Oct 17-18; Limoges city hall was set on fire, Lyon's tourist office was set ablaze, supermarkets were looted, and weekend unrest led to 2,400 arrests with hundreds injured.
- Oct 24, 2026Hundreds of thousands demonstrated again; police counted some 110,000 in a peaceful Paris march, 70,000 security forces were deployed and nearly 1,000 were arrested. Estimates of nationwide turnout ranged from 410,000 to 800,000, and riot police fired tear gas in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes.
- Oct 25, 2026France 24 reported hundreds of thousands had marched across France on Saturday against the rising cost of living and lack of government resources for essential services like schools, with almost 1,000 arrested.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- President Macron said those who looted will have to pay for the damage and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable, blaming "insurrectionist elements from radical far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals."
- Official
- Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said "the marches went well" and called Saturday's outcome more positive than a week earlier, while saying police faced "an extremely elevated level of violence" from black-clad "ultra-left" extremists.
- Party
- Leftist leaders denounced a government move to limit the number of authorised marches in many cities and a last-minute decision to shift the Paris event to the southeastern fringes of the capital.
- Public
- Protesters in Paris chanted "Down with the state, the police and the fascists"; Emma, 23, marching in Rennes, voiced anger at the bans on demonstrations and the "repression" of high-school student protests, and Delphine, 47, in Lille, said neither the president nor the weather would stop her demonstrating.
Still unverified
One man in Toulouse reportedly had fingers blown off, but Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez did not give details of either of the two serious injury cases.