By 5:00 PM GMT, 296 people had been detained. The situation, however, seemed largely under control shortly before 6:00 PM GMT.
French authorities had deployed an extraordinary security operation of 70,000 law enforcement officers after calls for a “revolution” or “insurrection” circulated on social media during Halloween.
The aim was to prevent a repetition of the violence and looting seen on October 17.
As last week, the government had also banned marches in city centers.
“Despite the closed metro stations, a week-long scare campaign by official media outlets, and a change of gathering location, the crowd was as large as this week,” said on X by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France insoumise (LFI, radical left) and a presidential candidate, who himself took part in the Paris demonstration.
A total of 320,000 people were counted in the streets across France, including 70,000 in Paris, for this third day of demonstrations called by high school and university students, the “Yellow Vests,” and unions.
The youth union federation, which groups unions or associations representing high school and university students, reported nearly half a million people, including 200,000 in Paris.
Last Saturday, authorities counted 410,000 protesters nationwide, and organizers 800,000.
In Paris, under bright sunshine, protesters marched with banners reading “alert to the cost of living” or “we don’t want to spend our lives earning it,” along the only route authorized by the police in the eastern residential districts of the city.
But the end of the demonstration led to clashes with projectiles thrown at the police, who responded with tear gas. Similar clashes occurred in Lyon (east-central), Rennes (west), Marseille (south-east) and Toulouse (south-west).
“Police State”
On this Halloween day, in many processions, costumes of Spider-Man, Frankenstein and the Joker, Batman masks and pirate hats mingled with union banners or those of LFI and with French and Palestinian flags.
“We say no to the price of life, no to the far-right, yes to the demands of high school students, yes to the voice of citizens”, proclaimed Camille Guérin, a 31-year-old protester in Nantes (west).
Alongside the high school demands for more resources in education and against the high cost of living, there was the rise of racism after an attack that killed one and wounded seven on October 23 in the Île-de-France region. The suspect, aged 39, admitted having “specifically targeted people (…) of Muslim or African or North African origin.”
This attack heightened tensions six months before the presidential election, for which far-right candidate Marine Le Pen was viewed as the favorite, according to polls.
Across France, protesters criticized the government for not allowing demonstrations in city centers.
“Macron has pushed social demands to the periphery of his mandate”, lamented a Paris-based CGT union official, Adèle Tellez.
“It makes me afraid to see what’s happening in this French democracy, a police state is taking shape,” said Eloïse, 35, in Toulouse, where no demonstration had been authorized.
Several protesters, including minors, have been seriously injured or maimed since mid-September in the course of order maintenance operations. According to the Interior Minister, 1,193 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
“Six-Seven”
Authorities warned of potential outbreaks of violence in the evening. “The pretext of Halloween night will not be a legitimate reason to mask one’s face in public space to commit disturbances to public order,” warned Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.
Organizations called to continue the movement, notably by blocking high schools and universities on Tuesday and Thursday.
A day of strike, at the unions’ call, is also planned for next Thursday, and the coordination of the “Gilets jaunes” has called for a “six-seven popular” by continuing “the movement on November 6 and 7.”
This protest, born mid-September in high schools to demand more resources for education, has since spread across Europe.
On Saturday, protests were planned in around thirty German cities at the call of a youth movement “GenZ regelt!” (“Gen Z is taking care of it!”).
In Italy, hundreds of thousands of students and workers took to the streets on Friday to demand more funding for schools and measures against the rising cost of living.
