Nearly 1,000 people were detained across France on Saturday, as a wave of mostly peaceful protests over economic grievances returned to the streets of major cities, mirroring similar demonstrations across Europe.
Demonstrations were not affected by the scale of violence that erupted the previous weekend, although a heavy police presence sparked violent clashes in the capital as well as in Marseille and Bordeaux.
The large-scale protests that have taken place across Europe in recent weeks vary in size and priority, but share some common grievances: the rising cost of living, the housing crisis and lack of funding for education.
France is home to some of the continent’s largest protests. The Interior Ministry said about 110,000 of the more than 410,000 people taking to the streets Saturday were in Paris, roughly the same number of protesters who took to the streets a week earlier. The NFL game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints was held Sunday at the Stade de France outside Paris, but fan events in the capital were canceled.
See in photos: French protests descend into national crisis
Tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid, Spain, on Saturday demanding protection for state pensions, while Portuguese police said they had cleared encampments that had sprung up in central Lisbon and Porto in response to protests over the housing crisis, state broadcaster RTVE reported.
Most of the rallies in European cities were mostly peaceful, but there were some instances of chaos and clashes with authorities. In Barcelona, authorities announced 128 arrests following rioting and looting.
Catalonia’s interior minister, Nuria Parlon, said about 600 people had gathered in central Barcelona on Saturday night “not to take part in any demonstrations, not to take part in any demonstrations, not to defend ordinary causes or rights.”
Footage also showed several small fires burning and extinguishing, as well as broken shop windows. One group of rioters even managed to break into an Urban Outfitters store by breaking through its store window. Another group was filmed trying to break into a jewelry store on Las Ramblas, one of Barcelona’s most popular shopping streets. Police said 14 officers were injured, four of them seriously.
Barcelona’s ‘against the regime’ protests turn violent
An anti-regime rally in Barcelona turned violent, with more than a dozen stores looted and about 100 people arrested, authorities said.
According to Catalan police, a group of hooded people gathered in the central Plaza de Catalunya at around 6pm local time and destroyed a total of 23 stores.
Parlon stressed that these people were not taking part in any demonstrations, but Barcelona Mayor Jaume Corboni said they “could be connected to some of the calls being made in some European capitals.”
In the Italian cities of Rome, Milan and Naples, shops that had been looted in earlier demonstrations had their windows boarded up, but protests against rising costs of living and war were smaller than expected.
Italian authorities have reinforced security forces in Milan with hundreds of troops, carried out searches and seized baseball bats, fireworks and masks from scores of demonstrators. According to local media, a number of demonstrators were also taken away for questioning and were not allowed to participate in the planned march.
Protesters in Turin, Bologna and Florence scuffled with security forces, who used batons and tear gas to push back groups trying to cross barriers, local media showed footage of bleeding demonstrators.
In Albania’s capital, Tirana, demonstrators set trash cans on fire and threw stones and tear gas canisters, demanding more education support and the prime minister’s resignation.
And in Brussels, the Belgian capital, students held placards and barricaded roads. Police then deployed water cannon to disperse the crowd, according to the country’s public broadcaster VRT.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told reporters that the demonstration in Paris was “peaceful, like most protest marches across the country,” and said about 1,000 people had been detained across the country.
Nunez said police restricted the movement of demonstrators. “They were prevented from carrying out unauthorized wandering protests and heading into the city centre.”
“In some cities, there was a very limited number of businesses being damaged and looted,” Nuñez added, but far less than during the protests a week ago.
Nuñez said there were “no targeted attacks” on public buildings such as City Hall or the police station, like those seen last weekend.
But Nuñez added that security forces faced “a very high level of violence, including constant projectiles being thrown and mortar fireworks being fired.” He said security forces would remain in place until late Saturday evening local time to prevent looting.
French authorities have launched a major security operation in preparation for a second round of protests, mobilizing around 70,000 police officers across the country, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
Specialist SWAT teams, helicopters, armored vehicles, police dogs and water cannons were on standby as part of the operation, which saw more than half a million people take to the streets last Saturday.
After marching peacefully through Paris, thousands of demonstrators confronted police, who used tear gas and water cannon to stop them, according to a CNN team at the scene.
Clashes broke out at the Arc de Vincennes, the end of the march.
In Marseille, France’s second largest city, protesters fired mortar fireworks at police during street skirmishes, and there was looting throughout the city, including broken windows and looting of jewelry stores and supermarkets, CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV reported.
Images from Bordeaux, on France’s Atlantic coast, showed tear gas being used against demonstrators at the famous Place de la Bourse. Video showed masked protesters throwing objects at police as tear gas hung in the square.
Dozens of far-right activists attacked peaceful protesters in Nice on Saturday, BFMTV reported.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left party France Enboud, who participated in the Paris march, warned that the protests were likely to continue unless French President Emmanuel Macron acceded to demonstrators’ demands.
“It’s time for the authorities to give in. Otherwise, soon the only option left for them will be the exit door,” he said in a post on X.
Earlier on Saturday, Mélenchon told BFMTV from the front lines of the demonstrations that there was a risk of further nationwide industrial action on November 5 unless Macron “cave in now”.
