French Protest Turnout Falls to 320,000 as Paris Clashes Return and Students Vow to Keep Marching

Since student protests over school funding and living costs began in September, France has had a weekend of mass marches almost every week. Saturday, Oct. 31, was another, and it ended the way recent ones have: with tear gas in the evening.

The Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 320,000, down from 410,000 on Oct. 24. Paris police counted 70,000 marchers in the capital, compared with 110,000 last Saturday. Those are official counts. Unions have disputed the ministry's numbers before. Last week the CGT estimated nearly 800,000 nationwide.

Molotovs in Paris, flags burned in Lyon

The Paris march ended in confrontation. Officers fired rounds of tear gas at people who refused to disperse in the late afternoon. Flash Info reported that what appeared to be Molotov cocktails were thrown at police near Porte de Charenton, injuring several officers who had to fall back from their position.

Police and protesters also clashed in Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Rennes. In Lyon, Actu Lyon reported that militants burned an American flag and an Israeli flag on a tram shelter roof as the march went by.

No arrest or injury totals for Saturday had been released as of this writing. Last Saturday's march ended with 64 arrests in Paris, 40 people placed in custody, and six minors among those detained, the Paris prosecutor's office said. Most of those arrests involved suspected weapons offenses or taking part in a group preparing violence or property damage.

Throwing firebombs at police is not protest. It is a crime, and the people doing it are a small slice of a much larger crowd that came for school funding and prices.

Halloween and the 8 p.m. ban

The date itself worried the government. French authorities pointed to social media calls for people to turn out in masks and costumes. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said there were "numerous calls to gather coming from the far left, the radicalized extreme left, and from certain radicalized 'yellow vests' websites," urging rallies starting at 8 p.m. in many cities.

Some of those messages called for "revolution" and "insurrection," Nuñez said. The gatherings are banned, and any attempt to hold one anyway will lead to arrests. He also warned that concealing one's face during a demonstration that disrupts public order is a criminal offense.

Nuñez promised 70,000 police officers nationwide, the same number as Oct. 24. That deployment helped contain arson and looting last week, though police still clashed with crowds in the evening.

French officials are also worried about social media as a recruiting and incitement tool. Speculation that the government had considered temporarily suspending several popular sites drew a denial from President Emmanuel Macron.

The concessions and the students

The movement's core demand is still unmet, according to the students. The Education Ministry has agreed to cap some class sizes, offer low-interest loans to rebuild school buildings, and phase out an unpopular online college admissions platform.

Students were not mollified, and they have vowed to keep protesting. They return to school Monday, Nov. 2, after a two-week break.

The two-month-old movement has grown well beyond its start as a protest over staff shortages at one high school southeast of Paris. It now includes university students, public workers and veterans of the "yellow vest" movement that convulsed France from 2018 to 2020. Workers are asking for higher wages and pensions on top of better schools.

The far-right National Rally has accused Macron's government of failing to protect the public. It is urging people to channel their anger into votes for the party. Macron is in the final months of his presidency, and voters choose his successor in May.

Macron has taken a two-track line. He acknowledged some "legitimate demands" earlier in the unrest but vowed that "those who destroyed must pay." The Week reported that more than 7,000 people have been arrested and at least 1,250 injured, most of them police, over the weeks of demonstrations.

In the U.S., President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have tied the French riots to the midterm elections. "If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what's happening in France," Trump said.

What comes next

The smaller crowds show the weekly marches may be losing numbers. But the people who have stayed in the streets are the harder-core ones, and the unrest is shifting to night. The test now is Monday, when students walk back into classrooms and decide whether a cap on some class sizes and cheaper school-repair loans are enough to stop the marches.