Nearly 1,000 Arrested in France as Mass Protests End in Clashes in Several Cities

Close to 1,000 people were arrested in France on Saturday as hundreds of thousands joined a fresh wave of nationwide protests, officials said. Largely peaceful demonstrations during the day gave way to clashes in the evening in several cities.

Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse crowds in a number of places, Paris among them. In Marseille, barricades were set on fire, and in Bordeaux people were seen tearing boards off a shop. Even so, the authorities appear to have avoided the widespread rioting and looting of last weekend, which produced some of the worst disorder in France's modern history.

The interior ministry estimated turnout at 410,000, while the unions put it at around 800,000. About 70,000 police officers were deployed and restrictions were imposed in several cities. The aim was to stop the protests, which concern the cost of living and poor conditions in schools, from sliding into the chaos seen a week earlier, when officers were outnumbered, hundreds of businesses were looted and buildings were torched.

President Emmanuel Macron had decreed earlier in the week that only demonstrations organised by recognised trade unions would be allowed. Hundreds of people have been jailed for vandalism, arson and looting after fast-track court hearings in recent days.

In Paris, trouble began at the end of a peaceful march from Porte d'Italie towards Porte de Vincennes. The police operation included an elite unit normally assigned to organised crime and counter-terrorism. Some protesters built makeshift barricades and threw projectiles at officers, while police charged with batons at groups of masked youths who were smashing the windows of a car dealership. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said "several thousand radical activists gathered at the rear of the march, including around 500 individuals identified as rioters", according to AFP.

In Marseille, rubbish bins were set alight and metal sheets were used to block streets. In Lyon, police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd that had reportedly gathered in an area the local prefecture had declared off-limits. "There were around 150 of us, mostly secondary school and university students," one protester said. "You could barely see anything in the street."

Nuñez said late in the day that nearly 1,000 people had been arrested and that the figure would rise. He added that two people had been seriously injured, one in Toulouse and the other in Clermont-Ferrand.

Demonstrators voiced deep frustration. A 26-year-old Paris protester who gave her name as Zelie told the BBC that people were "suffering a lot" and that "it's been too much". Two masked teenagers said their generation felt abandoned by the government. One of them said looting was "really not good" but blamed "poverty and the violence of the police", adding that the protests would end when demands were answered. Separately, some 13,000 people rallied peacefully in Orléans against the hard-right National Rally party.

Unrest also spread beyond France. 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, after fears of a repeat of violence the previous week.

Last weekend about 550,000 people demonstrated against rising fuel prices and the cost of living, after weeks of student protests. More than 2,500 arrests followed, and over 2,000 shops and businesses were said to be directly affected, with damage estimated by the Chambers of Commerce and Industry 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. With presidential elections six months away, leading contenders have blamed Macron and his ministers.