PARIS: Protesters clashed with police in Paris and other cities in France on Saturday during nationwide rallies over high prices as the country heads towards a presidential election.
Protesters broke into the town hall of France’s second-largest city of Marseille before being forced out by police. In Paris, police fired a water cannon and teargas after hundreds of protesters, most wearing face masks and some setting off fireworks, confronted them at several locations, AFP reporters saw.
The offices of French broadcasters CNews and Europe 1 in western Paris had windows broken when protesters threw projectiles.
Thousands of demonstrators converged for a march through Paris, cutting main roads and prompting authorities to close many metro stations in the centre. The protests are piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron’s government after weeks of student demonstrations that turned violent at times. There has been public criticism over the police’s perceived disproportionate response.
More than 32,000 protesters had taken part in some 140 actions nationwide outside Paris shortly after midday on Saturday, a source at the interior ministry told AFP.
Police detained more than 160 people nationwide, the source said.
The country’s Yellow Vest movement, which eight years ago staged street protests against Macron’s government over planned fuel tax hikes, had called for the “yellow and youth” demonstrations.
It appealed to teachers and students, workers, pensioners and farmers to take part in the protests on the first day of half-term holidays.
“We’re taking the Bastille,” one demonstrator shouted in Marseille as masked protesters rammed the door of the mayor’s offices with security barriers, in reference to the 1789 storming of a fortress during the French Revolution.
Several then entered, one spray painting an anarchist “A” symbol on an inside wall, before police intervened to disperse them.
“We’re here to protest the deplorable resources allocated to education and against police brutality,” said Aude, a masked student who did not give her surname.
An AFP photographer also saw some protesters attack a police building in the city.
“At the end of the month, I have nothing left. Prices are going up but wages aren’t,” said Franck, a civil servant in his forties who would not give his surname, as he demonstrated in the central town of Gueret with around 300 people, a quarter of them high school students.
“We can’t take it anymore, we’re suffocating,” he added.
In the western city of Rennes, around 20 people set up a barricade using trash bins and large pallets on the outskirts of a shopping mall.
Christophe, a 47-year-old carpenter and former Yellow Vest protester who did not give his surname, said he was indignant after seeing what he viewed as police brutality against teenagers in recent weeks.
“We’ve reached the point where the repression is targeting our own children,” he told AFP.
In Paris, where the authorities have banned protests around government buildings, the Champs-Elysees shopping avenue and train stations, police detained around 60 people on Saturday morning.
More than 600 demonstrations were planned across France, according to a website set up by organisers on the eve of the protests.
Around 45 percent of French people are worried about the cost of living and inflation, according to a survey of 2,000 people published earlier this month.
Purchasing power in France has dwindled since 2024, while the price of fuel has soared since the start of the US-Iran war earlier this year.
The eurozone’s second largest economy is struggling to reign in its public debt, projected next year to reach more than 120 percent of GDP — double the EU limit of 60 percent.
Economists say significant debt reduction will come only with major reforms, such as sharply curtailing France’s generous pension system.
Macron on Friday evening called “for calm and respect”, adding the right to protest went hand in hand with “respect for people and property”.
France’s far-left and far-right parties have both seized upon the unrest.
Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, has backed the student protests and marched in one demonstration Tuesday supporting them.
Marine Le Pen, who leads in opinion polls for the presidential race, has positioned her National Rally party on the side of the police.