France police arrest 980 as protest clashes return

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez announced late Saturday that police had arrested 980 people during nationwide protests in France. He noted that the total would likely increase as reports came in from various cities. Two individuals sustained serious injuries, one in Toulouse and the other in Clermont-Ferrand. The arrests followed a day of largely peaceful marches that turned violent in the evening across several major urban centers.

The French interior ministry estimated the total turnout at 410,000 participants, a figure the unions disputed by claiming attendance reached approximately 800,000. To manage the crowds, authorities deployed roughly 70,000 police officers and imposed movement restrictions in multiple cities. This heavy security presence was a direct response to the severe unrest of the prior weekend, which saw hundreds of businesses looted, buildings torched, and over 2,500 arrests.

In Paris, order broke down near the end of a march from Porte d'Italie to Porte de Vincennes. Police utilized an elite unit typically assigned to counter-terrorism and organized crime. Protesters constructed makeshift barricades and threw objects at officers, who responded by charging with batons at groups of masked youths smashing windows at a car dealership. Nuñez stated that several thousand radical activists gathered at the rear of the march, including about 500 identified rioters. In Marseille, protesters set fire to barricades and used metal sheets to block streets. In Lyon, police fired tear gas at a crowd of approximately 150 students in an area declared off-limits by the local prefecture.

President Emmanuel Macron had issued a decree earlier in the week restricting demonstrations to those organized by recognized trade unions. Following the previous week's chaos, fast-track court hearings resulted in hundreds of people being jailed for vandalism, arson, and looting. The protests center on rising living costs and deteriorating conditions in schools. A 26-year-old Paris protester named Zelie told the BBC that people are suffering greatly, while two masked teenagers described their generation as feeling abandoned by the government. One teenager acknowledged that looting was not good but blamed poverty and police violence for the escalation.

Unrest also extended beyond France's borders. Riot police in Tirana, Albania, fired tear gas at thousands of anti-government demonstrators. In Brussels, clashes were reported among protesters. In Milan, hundreds of soldiers and police blocked gathering points to prevent a repeat of the violence seen the previous week. The demonstrations follow a period of student protests and a surge in fuel prices, with presidential elections scheduled for six months from now.