OMM Newsroom
Riot police used tear gas and detained nearly 1,000 people during demonstrations against rising living costs in major French cities on October 24, AnewZ reported. After the main march in Paris ended, police used water cannon against a group of about 500 young people with their faces covered.
In Marseille, France’s second-largest city, young people set fire to rubbish bins to block roads and threw stones and bottles at security forces. Police said several shops, including two jewellery stores, were looted.
According to France’s Interior Ministry, 410,000 people took part in demonstrations nationwide. Trade unions said the turnout was twice that figure.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said black-clad “ultra-left” extremists and criminal groups had confronted police with “an extremely high level of violence”.
“We saw high-risk groups forming at almost every march. They broke away from the main crowd and tried to commit acts of violence,” Nuñez said.
He told reporters that the violence was less severe than during the incidents a week earlier, when looters and vandals caused damage across the city.
Two seriously injured in Toulouse and Clermont-Ferrand
Nuñez said two people had been seriously injured. In Toulouse, in southwestern France, a man lost fingers in an explosion, while another person was injured in Clermont-Ferrand, in the country’s central region.
After protests last week descended into riots, with shops looted and public buildings damaged, French authorities deployed an additional 70,000 police officers nationwide for Saturday’s demonstrations.
Much of central Paris took on the appearance of a city under siege: shop owners boarded up their windows, museums closed, and more than 20 metro stations were shut.
After thousands of shops and businesses across France were damaged or looted last weekend, business associations urged retailers to remain closed.
Oscar, manager of a boutique owned by Italian fashion house Kiton in Paris, said: “There are almost no customers, so it’s not worth staying open.”
The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Paris Opera, among the capital’s best-known cultural institutions, closed as a precaution that day, frustrating tourists.
“Everything is boarded up and we don’t really know where to go,” said Xavier Dolliole, a visitor from New Orleans, United States.
Demonstrations also held in Belgium, Italy and Albania
Unrest across the country began last month with small student protests over conditions in schools around Paris. The demonstrations quickly grew into broader protests against the government’s economic policies and prompted rallies in neighbouring countries.
Belgian police used tear gas and pepper spray during clashes with anti-government demonstrators in Brussels on Saturday. Protests continued for a second weekend in several Italian cities, and demonstrations were also held in Albania.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a radical-left leader who joined the march in Paris, predicted that the protests would continue until President Emmanuel Macron accepted the demands and resigned.
“Given the current situation, I think he will understand that this will happen every week. There is still time for Macron to make concessions. After that, the only way out for him will be the exit door,” Mélenchon told reporters.
