France protests draw hundreds of thousands, 135 arrests

Thousands of people marched in cities across France on Saturday, the second consecutive Saturday of demonstrations, a week after the October 17 protests ended in rioting and looting. The interior ministry counted close to 410,000 people mobilised across the country, while the CGT union put the figure at more than 800,000. Interior minister Laurent Nunez had banned the Paris demonstration, and its route was moved at the last minute from the Place de la Bastille to the Porte d’Italie; gatherings were also banned in several other cities, among them Lyon’s centre and Nice. More than 70,000 police were deployed across the country.

The interior minister put arrests at 135, most of them preventive, after extensive checks in which Paris police seized dangerous objects including metal balls, slingshots and an airsoft weapon. In Marseille, youths threw bottles and police used tear gas, and police also used tear gas in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse and Nantes, with clashes reported in Toulouse. Fuel prices are the immediate grievance, and the marches also carry the wider cost of living, public services and school conditions, the complaints that began with student protests in September. Unions and the Yellow Vests are among the movements on the street, the Yellow Vests have called a further protest day for Saturday, October 31, and the government published the decree for its strategic diesel stock sale the same day, with the price benefit due at the pump from November 1.