PARIS — Hundreds of thousands marched across France on Saturday. Police fired tear gas and used water cannon in Paris and other cities, but the violence stayed well below last weekend, when looters ran through the capital.
The Interior Ministry said 410,000 people took part nationwide, according to Reuters. Police put turnout in Paris at 110,000. Unions put the national total at about double the ministry figure.
In Paris the march itself was peaceful. People waved flags and denounced the cost of living and rising inequality. The trouble came at the end, when police moved on small groups of hooded youths.
Clashes also broke out in Lyon, Bordeaux and Grenoble. Police fired volleys of tear gas in Clermont-Ferrand, Lille and Nice.
Marseille saw the worst of it as night fell. Youths dragged big metal sheets across a street, set fire to rubbish bins and threw rocks and bottles at riot police.
France had 70,000 police officers and gendarmes on duty, 10,000 more than a week earlier. Officials conceded they had underestimated last weekend’s unrest.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told reporters police had arrested 135 people nationwide by early afternoon. Many were held after pre-emptive searches, he said, and officers found fireworks, ball bearings and other items that could be used as weapons.
“We have to be ultra, ultra responsive,”
He accused far-left activists and criminal gangs of seeking to foment violence.
Much of central Paris looked shut down. Shopkeepers boarded up storefronts. More than 20 metro stations closed, and business groups urged retailers to stay shut after thousands of shops were damaged or looted last weekend.
The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Paris Opera all closed for the day.
The protests started last month, and not in central Paris. Students in the suburbs demonstrated first, over conditions in their schools. The movement then widened into a protest about the state of the economy, and marches have since been held in neighbouring countries too.
On Saturday, Belgian police used tear gas and pepper spray in Brussels. Protests took place in Italian cities for a second weekend.
In Orléans, about 75 miles south of Paris, the first authorised march of the day passed off peacefully. Demonstrators there rallied against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, which is holding a party congress in the city.
Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon joined the Paris rally. He predicted the protests would continue until President Emmanuel Macron addressed the problem, and said Macron’s mandate expires next year.
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