France protests draw 550,000, burn Limoges town hall

About 550,000 people took part in nationwide protests in France on Saturday over underfunded schools and the cost of living, and a fire largely destroyed the historic town hall in Limoges, officials said.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez put turnout at 110,000 in Paris alone. Organizers claimed about 800,000 people marched nationwide, according to figures reported by ABC News 4 and France 24. The demonstrations were among the largest in France in years, and the unrest spilled into Belgium, Italy and Portugal on the same day.

The protests began in mid-September at a high school in Créteil, in the Paris suburbs, over crumbling buildings, overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages, Al Jazeera reported. They widened on Oct. 17 when unions, including the CGT, and activists from the 2018 “yellow vests” movement joined students, teachers, nurses and firefighters. The yellow vests started in 2018 over fuel taxes.

Violence broke out in several cities. Protesters broke into the town hall in Marseille, and Al Jazeera reported that the town halls in Marseille and Lille were vandalized and a tourist office in Lyon was set on fire. AFP reported dozens of shops looted in cities including Paris, Nice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Strasbourg, according to Al Jazeera.

Casualty and arrest figures differed by source. Al Jazeera quoted Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu as saying 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police officers were hurt, and that “it’s a miracle the toll wasn’t higher.” ABC News 4 reported about 400 arrests and 60 officers injured, citing Nuñez. The Canada News Media desk could not reconcile the two sets of numbers, and they may reflect different times of day.

President Emmanuel Macron said those responsible for the violence would be “prosecuted and punished.” Speaking in Brussels on Oct. 16, he said there is “a constitutional right to protest and to express oneself,” but that it “must be accompanied by respect for people and property.” The Interior Ministry blamed the “ultra-left” for the worst violence.

Police conduct is also under scrutiny. Euronews reported that a 15-year-old allegedly lost an eye to a police rubber bullet and a 14-year-old lost a hand after picking up a stun grenade, and that France has suspended certain types of stun grenades. Nuñez told the Senate that 36 investigations into alleged police violence during the student protests had been opened. A protester in Saint-Étienne also lost a hand in a grenade incident, ABC News 4 reported. Those cases remain under investigation.

Lecornu said on Oct. 15 that 937 police officers and gendarmes had been injured since the protests began, Euronews reported. He said 248 students and 149 teaching staff had also been hurt, which he described as the highest number the Education Ministry has recorded.

The protests land as the government tries to push an austerity budget through a hung parliament while managing a heavy public debt. Al Jazeera reported that French borrowing costs are at their highest in more than 20 years. Alberto Alemanno, an EU law professor at HEC Paris, told Al Jazeera that France is the “epicentre of this movement” and that Greece, Germany and Austria are in the “early stages” of similar mobilizations expected in the coming week.

The unrest could shape France’s politics ahead of the presidential election in spring 2027. As the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen has already said she would end French aid to Ukraine after six months if elected, a shift in French politics would carry weight for Europe’s support for Kyiv. The French protests follow weeks of tension at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels and a strike in Belgium that drew 30,000 on Oct. 11.

For Canadians, France is a major destination. Anyone travelling there should check the federal government’s advisories at travel.gc.ca and expect possible disruption to transport and city centres during further demonstrations.

Via Al Jazeera, Euronews and ABC News 4.

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