Over 300 000 march across France in third weekend of anti-government protests

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Protesters run amid tear gas, during a demonstration organised by labour unions in Paris (Reuters) Reuters

A pyrotechnic explodes next to police officers in riot gear in the French capital (Reuters) Reuters

Huge crowds turned out across France for the third weekend of demonstrations, including here in Marseille (Reuters) Reuters

A protester holds a smoke bomb with flames in the foreground during an anti-government demonstration in central Tirana, Albania (AFP/Getty) AFP/Getty

German protesters facing riot police during a demonstration organised by "GenZ regelt! (AFP/Getty) AFP/Getty

Leftist party La France Insoumise (LFI) candidate in France’s 2027 presidential election Jean-Luc Melenchon and French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan take part in a nationwide demonstrations over the rising cost of living and inequality in Paris. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images theguardian.com

A person in an inflatable costume taking part in the demonstration in Paris. Photograph: Pedro Nunes/Reuters theguardian.com

A protester gives a flower to a gendarmerie officer. Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters theguardian.com

A protester dressed up as a ghost holds a placard reading “A ghost more visible than Bardella in the European Parliament”, in reference to Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally. Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images theguardian.com

Protesters wearing Halloween masks pose with placards during demonstrations in Lille, northern France. Photograph: François Lo Presti/AFP/Getty Images theguardian.com

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More than 300,000 people marched across France on Saturday in the third consecutive weekend of nationwide anti-government protests, with police firing tear gas in Paris and 70,000 officers and gendarmes deployed across the country. Interior minister Laurent Nuñez had warned of a 'very high risk' of coordinated disorder and banned Halloween masks as cover for street violence. Demonstrations also spread through German cities, and violent clashes continued for a second week in Tirana, where young protesters pelted the government and education ministries with stones over food prices, low wages and university fees.

The marches began last month when secondary school pupils walked out over staff shortages, deteriorating school buildings and a university admissions system seen as unfair to disadvantaged students. The movement has since widened into a broader challenge to Emmanuel Macron's government, drawing in trade unions and left-wing parties. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the LFI candidate for the 2027 presidential election, and the French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan both joined the Paris march, which set off from Porte Bagnolet on the eastern edge of the city — pushed away from the central boulevards by police order, after Macron directed that marches be kept out of central commercial districts to prevent a repeat of earlier evening unrest.

Several thousand gathered at Porte Bagnolet on Saturday afternoon, led by a line of high school students walking hand in hand, CGT union stewards at the front of the procession and riot police lining the side streets. One participant, a 21-year-old university student named Cabreux, said squalid conditions in state-run student housing — damp stains, peeling walls, cockroaches and rats — had forced him to protest, and that he hoped the turnout would remain peaceful to counter government depictions of the movement as mere cover for rioting.

That tension runs both ways. Police crowd-control tactics have drawn fierce criticism from trade unions and legal monitors after repeated use of tear gas, water cannon and dispersion grenades; earlier this month a 15-year-old student lost a hand after picking up an explosive stun grenade, a weapon France had previously suspended for student rallies. Nuñez has confirmed that all intermediate crowd-control weapons remain authorised if officers face targeted assaults. In Paris, police barred access to Place de la République and Les Halles between 23:00 and 06:00, and unaccompanied minors faced a 21:00 curfew around the Champs-Élysées. In Italy, riot units stayed on high alert across Milan, Turin and Bologna.

The government's difficulty is structural. Two weekends of rioting, looting and arson produced mass arrests but no negotiations — there is no leadership to negotiate with. The interior ministry can deploy 70,000 officers and it can count 300,000 marchers, but the grievances on display in Lille, Lyon and Tirana are cost of living, inequality and housing, and none of them can be kettled into submission. Authorities braced for violence after nightfall; a protester in Lyon carried a sign reading: 'We're just one finger away from revolt.'