'The marches went well' – French government on demonstrations a week after looting and violence

Clashes broke out Saturday in Paris and other French cities amid demonstrations held a week after others that degenerated into street violence and prompted a robust security backlash as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to restore order. 

Police arrested nearly 1,000 people as officers were confronted with "an extremely elevated level of violence" from black-clad "ultra-left" extremists, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said. 

Riot police squads fired tear gas at protesters in the capital as well as in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes. 

Read moreFrench police deploy in large numbers, major Paris museums close ahead of new protests

Two people were "seriously" injured, Nuñez said: one man in Toulouse, who reportedly had fingers blown off, and another person in Clermont-Ferrand. He did not give details of either case. 

Authorities had deployed 70,000 security forces across the country for the new marches, called to protest the cost of living. 

The violence came a week after rioting that saw public buildings vandalised, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested, casting a pall over a country that goes to the polls in six months to choose a successor to Macron after 10 years. 

Nuñez said Saturday's outcome was more "positive" than a week ago, with more police on the streets acting more rapidly, conducting more pre-demonstration checks and better protecting businesses. 

There was nevertheless widespread anger at the government over a protest crackdown viewed as an assault on the right to protest. 

Police battle 'rioters'

Saturday's demonstrations drew between 410,000 and 800,000 people across the country, according to different estimates by authorities and the organising CGT union. 

The main Paris march had between 110,000 and 250,000 attendees, according to those sources. 

Macron's government has ordered police to prevent protesters reaching city centres, where shops are concentrated, and in Paris and some other cities, partial curfews were imposed in certain urban zones. The French president had ordered non-union demonstrations be banned as "illegitimate". 

In Paris, where many shops had boarded up windows to prevent looting, and the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay museums shut for the day, the main demonstration passed off largely peacefully. 

Read moreFrance to deploy 70,000 police officers as students call for fresh protests Saturday

The march had been pushed to the capital's southeast rim under a last-minute order by authorities. 

Afterwards, though, clashes broke out as the crowd was dispersing. Nuñez said the confrontations lasted two hours and involved "500 rioters" at the back of the march. 

AFP journalists saw police charge several times and vigorously use tear gas and batons against some, mostly young, protesters. 

"The police started moving towards everyone, telling them to get down and back off. They were just taking people down, you know, beating protesters," one demonstrator bleeding from a baton blow to his face, who gave his first name as David, told AFP. 

Ultra-right vs ultra-left

In the western city of Nantes, thousands of protesters broke through lines of police firing tear gas and a water cannon to reach the city centre, an AFP journalist there witnessed. 

Emma, 23, marching in the northwest city of Rennes, said she was angry at "everything happening at the moment", denouncing the bans on demonstrations and the "repression" of the high schools student protests. 

Marching in the rain at the head of the protest in the northern city of Lille, 47-year-old Delphine insisted: "Neither the president, nor the weather will stop me from demonstrating."  

In Lyon, police used tear gas to disperse around 1,000 people gathered in the south of the city.  

Read moreNearly 1,000 arrests on the sidelines of Saturday's protests, says government

"If they prohibit protests then that means we are heading more and more towards a regime that is fascist, that is dictatorial," said one 20-year-old protester in Lyon, who gave only his first name, Silem. 

In the southern cities of Cannes and Montpellier, far-right activists came out onto the streets seeking confrontations with "ultra-left militants", in what authorities said was an unprecedented development. 

There was looting on the sidelines of the marches in Marseille and Grenoble, said police. 

Meanwhile, the Yellow Vests, who staged disruptive protests against Macron eight years ago, called for more demonstrations on October 31 for "the freedom to protest". 

Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who marched in the Paris rally, said Macron "is going to understand that this is going to repeat itself every week". 

Protest against Le Pen's party

Tensions were heightened by a rally in the city of Orleans by far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally party to kick off her campaign for the presidential election. 

Thousands of counter-protesters chanting anti-fascist slogans marched in the city. Police put their number at 13,000 while organisers said twice as many participated. 

The unrest across France highlighted the febrile political atmosphere ahead of the vote, in which Le Pen leads in surveys. 

Inflation in France, particularly affecting the cost of fuel, has surged since the start of the Middle East war in February. 

Protests have also been taking place in Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal over different issues, yet with some overlap on inflation and education problems. Italy has mobilised 500 troops to Milan after street violence there. 

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)