Clashes erupted across France on Saturday (October 24, 2026) as protesters took to the streets, a week after marches that degenerated into violence and prompted a firm security backlash from President Emmanuel Macron, who is scrambling to restore order.
asserted
who → erupt → order
Police arrested nearly 1,000 people as officers faced “an extremely elevated level of violence” from black-clad “ultra-left” extremists, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
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Nunez → arrest → extremists
Riot police squads fired tear gas at protesters in the capital as well as in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes.
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squads → fire → Marseille
Two people were “seriously” injured, Mr. Nunez said: one man in Toulouse, who reportedly had fingers blown off, and another person in Clermont-Ferrand.
uncertain
fingers → injure → Ferrand
He did not give details of either case.
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He → give → case
Authorities had deployed 70,000 security personnel across the country for the new marches, called to protest the cost of living.
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Authorities → deploy → 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 the country six months before an election to choose Mr. Macron’s successor.
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people → come → successor
Mr. Nunez said on Saturday’s (October 24, 2026) 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.
But there was widespread anger at the government over a protest crackdown viewed as an assault on the right to protest.
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police → say → right
Saturday’s (October 24, 2026) demonstrations drew between 4,10,000 and 8,00,000 people across the country, according to different estimates by authorities and the organising CGT union.
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demonstrations → draw → authorities
The main Paris march had between 1,10,000 and 2,50,000 attendees, according to those sources.
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march → have → sources
Mr. Macron’s government has ordered police to prevent protesters from reaching city centres, where shops are concentrated, and in Paris and some other cities, partial curfews were imposed in certain urban zones.
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curfews → order → zones
The French President had ordered non-union demonstrations be banned as “illegitimate”.
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demonstrations → order → ?
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.
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demonstration → board → day
The march had been pushed to the capital’s southeast rim under a last-minute order by authorities.
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march → push → authorities
Afterwards, though, clashes broke out as the crowd was dispersing, with Mr. Nunez blaming “500 rioters” at the back of the march.
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Nunez → break → march
AFP journalists saw police charge several times, blasting tear gas and using batons against some, mostly young, protesters.
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police → see → protesters
“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.
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who → take → AFP
Ultra-right vs ultra-left
Thousands of protesters in the western city of Nantes broke through lines of police firing tear gas and a water cannon to reach the city centre, an AFP journalist witnessed.
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journalist → break → centre
Emma, 23, who came out in the northwest city of Rennes, denounced the bans on demonstrations and the “repression” of protests by high school students demanding better learning conditions.
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who → come → conditions
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.”
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President → march → me
In Lyon, police used tear gas to disperse around 1,000 people gathered in the south of the city.
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police → use → city
“If they ban protests, that means we’re 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.
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who → ban → name
In the southern cities of Cannes and Montpellier, far-right activists clashed with “ultra-left militants”, in what authorities said was an unprecedented development.
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authorities → clash → militants
There was looting on the sidelines of the marches in Marseille and Grenoble, police said.
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police → be → Marseille
The Yellow Vests, who staged disruptive protests against Macron eight years ago, called for more demonstrations on October 31 for “the freedom to protest”.
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who → stag → freedom
Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who marched in Paris, said the movement “is going to repeat itself every week”.
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movement → march → itself
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.
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Tensions → heighten → election
Thousands of counter-protesters chanting anti-fascist slogans marched in the city.
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Thousands → chant → city
The unrest across France highlighted the febrile political atmosphere ahead of the vote, in which Le Pen leads in surveys.
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Pen → highlight → surveys
Inflation in France, particularly affecting the cost of fuel, has surged since the start of the Middle East war in February.
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Inflation → affect → February
“I’m going to try and instill a bit of optimism,” said the four-time presidential hopeful, who has cast herself as the law-and-order candidate, ahead of her first major campaign speech on Sunday (October 25, 2026).
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who → go → Sunday
Protests have also broken out in Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal over different issues, yet with some overlap on inflation and education problems.
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Protests → break → inflation
The Aporia
