Protesters clash with police during nationwide demonstrations in France

Thousands rally in Paris and other cities for demonstrations set to unite students, teachers, unions and ‘yellow vests’.

Protesters have clashed with police in cities across France as major rallies take place across the country.

Scuffles broke out on Saturday in the capital, Paris, between groups of protesters and police, who used tear gas to push back people wearing hoods and masks.

The demonstrations are set to unite students, teachers, trade unions, and the resurging ‘yellow vest’ movement – remnants of the grassroots cost-of-living protests that shook France in 2018.

Large numbers of riot police were deployed in the Place de la Republique, a square northeast of the city centre, and surrounding streets on Saturday. Dozens of people were reportedly already detained.

Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said “a lot” of stun grenades and tear gas were being used by police.

She said that what began as a peaceful protests “never really got started”, as police quickly moved to isolate protesters, effectively trapping them between police lines. “That is where some of the trouble began,” Butler said.

In the southern city of Marseille, meanwhile, local media reported that protesters breached the town hall and looted shops in the city’s commercial district, while in Lyon, media reports said the local tourism office was set ablaze.

This is a “key moment” for France, said Al Jazeera’s Rosie Birchard, reporting from the western French city of Rennes.

“There are budget negotiations going on; the French government is trying to find ways to curb its ballooning national debt, and there consequential presidential elections happening next year,” she said.

France’s Interior Ministry had recorded 140 protest actions across the country by midday on Saturday, with 32,800 participants. The ministry said over 250 people had been arrested nationwide so far.

‘Where are we going as a country?’

Saturday’s protests against the rising costs of goods like fuel and food come on the back of weeks of rallies from French high school students, who took to the streets to protest poor conditions in their schools.

Some children who attended those high school protests reported serious injuries at the hands of police, including the case of one 15-year-old girl who lost a hand.

Beyond the clashes at some demonstrations, Saturday has also seen widespread peaceful protests, with unions, teachers, healthcare workers and regular citizens taking to the streets.

French “yellow vest” protesters – who took to the streets in nationwide protests from 2018 to 2020 to protest rising fuels costs – have also signalled that they will join the protests.

The yellow vests have been “trying to make a comeback”, Birchard said, and this “seems to be the moment”.

Bruno Cautres, a researcher at the Paris-based Center for Political Research, told Al Jazeera that Saturday’s events are a “culmination of different mobilisations” including students, teachers, nurses, farmers, yellow vests.

He said the French population is frustrated by high taxes combined with a significant national debt and deficit that prevent the government satisfying their demands: “The French are asking themselves where are we going as a country? How are we going to get out of this budget crisis?”

President Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm on Friday, the eve of the protests.

“There is a constitutional right to protest and to express oneself,” he said in Brussels. “But this right comes with the need to respect. Respect for people, respect for property, and therefore a commitment not to insult or destroy.”