ONE MILLION workers, students and youth demonstrated for decent public education and other services in towns and cities across France on Saturday.
They came under attack by 70,000 heavily armed police mobilised by President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
Riot police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon at peaceful demonstrators in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nantes and other major cities.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police arrested nearly 1,400 people nationwide on Saturday.
Yesterday, French protest groups and unions called further demonstrations next Saturday and a nationwide general strike is planned for Thursday 5th November.
‘We see an aggregation of anger,’ said Murielle Guilbert, co-leader of the Solidaires trade union federation yesterday. ‘We call on people to take to the streets next Saturday.’
The SUD Education teaching union said it would join the October 31st demonstration while the CGT union confederation said it would decide during the week.
Saturday’s protests across the country came in defiance of Macron who had decreed last week that only one demonstration in Paris would be permitted.
In the southern port of Marseille, France’s second-largest city, rubbish bins were set ablaze and metal sheets used as makeshift street barricades and then set alight, while in Bordeaux protesters ripped boards from shops to use for fuel.
Clashes erupted between protesters and riot police in Paris at the end of a peaceful march from the city’s Porte d’Italie towards Porte de Vincennes, where the police operation included an attack on the protesters by an elite unit that usually deals with organised crime and counter-terrorism.
Protesters pelted officers with projectiles, while police baton-charged groups of youth.
In Lyon, police fired tear gas grenades at a crowd which had reportedly gathered in an area declared off-limits by the local prefecture. ‘There were around 150 of us, mostly secondary school and university students. Then the tear gas came almost immediately. You could barely see anything in the street,’ said one protester.
At least two people were seriously injured, including a 20-year-old in Toulouse who had his fingers torn off one hand when a nearby explosive went off.
In Paris, 26-year-old Zelie said: ‘They keep us quiet. They take our money, they tax us a lot and we can’t say anything. Today we are in the streets because it’s been too long, it’s been too much.’
Mass protests triggered by similar issues as in France also rocked several other European cities on Saturday.
A mass protest by thousands of of students in Barcelona came under violent attack by Spanish police, with more than 120 arrested.
In Albania’s capital Tirana, riot police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of anti-government demonstrators, while clashes were also reported in Belgium’s capital Brussels.
In Milan, northern Italy, the right-wing Meloni government mobilised a major security operation including hundreds of soldiers alongside police, which attacked protesting workers and youth gathering in the city.