General strike forces French PM to invite unions to wage talks after weeks of riots, Lecornu offered the same leaders no measures three weeks ago, Paris keeps its nighttime curfew around Place de la République and Les Halles

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French police clash with protesters in Lyon on day of nationwide rallies, strike (Via Detroit News) Via Detroit News

France's Interior Ministry said 575,000 people participated in Thursday's protests nationwide. [Hannah McKay/Reuters] zerohedge.com

Protesters face police during a demonstration for demanding higher wages and in support of the high school protest movement, in Lyon, France, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani) Laurent Cipriani)

France's prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has invited union and employer leaders to talks at Matignon on Monday, after a nationwide strike over wages, pensions and the 2027 budget put 575,000 people on the streets by the interior ministry's count. The CGT claimed close to 1.6 million, France 24 reports.

It was the third national mobilisation in three weeks, and the first to be met with an invitation. When union leaders met Lecornu on October 21 they left, in Euronews's phrase, unanimously disappointed: the prime minister announced no measures and showed "no consideration of our demands," in the words of CGT leader Sophie Binet. Three days later 410,000 marched, 1,314 people were arrested, 53 police and gendarmes were injured, and Paris imposed a curfew from 11 at night to 6 in the morning around Place de la République and Les Halles. Lyon imposed its own.

Thursday brought the largest interior ministry turnout yet and 448 arrests. Riot police fired teargas at the end of the marches in Lyon and Bordeaux, with water cannon used against fires set in Lyon's streets; officers were pelted with pétanque balls in Rennes, and in Toulouse fireworks fired at a school started a blaze that burned its student services office. In eastern Paris, police used teargas to keep students away from the Hélène Boucher high school after stopping them from building barricades out of wheeled bins. Students have been protesting for weeks over education funding, building repairs and the Parcoursup admissions platform, which the government says will be replaced for the 2028 admissions round.

Rail took the heaviest disruption: one TGV in ten was expected to be cancelled, one train in three ran on the RER D, and the four representative SNCF unions backed the strike. SUD-Rail's Fabien Villedieu called it "a big strike over pay, jobs and working conditions." Justice minister Gérald Darmanin puts the number taken into police custody nationwide at 2,500, with 917 sent for immediate trial, and the government blames "the ultra-left" for much of the violence; President Macron, speaking from Qatar, called for firmness against those responsible. Binet now wants strikes to take over from street protests so the movement can "generalise the strike," while the CFTC's Cyril Chabanier noted the government had "opened the door" to minimum wage talks.

The talks at Matignon open on Monday, three weeks after the same union leaders left a meeting with the same prime minister having been offered nothing.