LIVE Mobilization of October 17: Wild processions in Paris and first actions in several cities in France...

In Clermont-Ferrand, several hundred people, many of them young people, marched in the streets behind a red banner “one solution, revolution”.

“We are here because we have been shouting our demands for three weeks and they are not being heard. We are here out of solidarity with the dilapidated high schools,” says Lise, 16, who attends a high school in the city center.

“The convergence of struggles is extremely important to show the government that it is not one cause that is important, but that there are also other people who want to be heard, it is a general anger, we have common problems,” Julia Kudada declared on France Info this Saturday.

With gasoline and diesel reaching 10 to 11 lei per liter (nearly 2 euros), Romanians are finding it increasingly difficult to refuel. “Times are really tough. But we’re not going to start breaking everything,” laughs Gabriel, a VTC driver.

In Lyon, demonstrators gave a standing ovation to a couple who had just gotten married at the town hall of the 7th arrondissement.

In Lyon, police dispersed with tear gas grenades nearly 300 people gathered in front of Lyon-3 University shortly after 10 a.m. after demonstrators began shouting “Siamo tutti antifascisti,” AFP noted.

Gare Montparnasse, around 150 young people gathered and then took to the rue de Rennes, chanting “Macron is waging war on us and so are his police,” noted an AFP journalist. The police charged rue du Vieux Colombier and blocked a large part of the group between buildings and a police cordon, according to the same source.

Met in front of Montparnasse station, Blanche, a second year high school student (first name changed), was waiting for friends. She has prepared a sign “mobilized youth is a power that scares even atomic bombs (Thomas Sankara)” and will demonstrate “so that there are funds for public education, that all high school students have adequate conditions in their classes”.

On Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, a procession of around 200 demonstrators, some masked, faced helmeted police officers in mid-morning, and the situation became tense, AFP journalists noted.

The police fired tear gas to repel the wild demonstration and at the entrance to the street, at Boulevard Magenta, the demonstrators chanted “Siamo Tutti antifascisti” and “Acab”, according to the same source.

Mid-morning in Paris, two wild processions formed leading to the intervention of the police to disperse them, announced the police headquarters (PP) reporting 61 arrests at 11 a.m.

The first procession, a union gathering, made up of around a hundred people, according to the PP, formed in the Gare du Nord area before reaching the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis.

The second, made up of high school students and of a similar scale, began on rue de Rennes, completed the police headquarters by specifying that at 11 a.m., 61 arrests and 589 preventive checks had been carried out and four fixed fines issued.

Faced with rising fuel and energy prices and a “recession budget,” “if we don’t mobilize, the government won’t move,” Fabien Roussel, the communist candidate for the presidential election, declared on Saturday.

“The French are afraid, they are worried, they are right […]. This is why we must be very numerous, farmers, employees, high school students, we must all come together to be united to influence the government's choices,” added Mr. Roussel, present at a gathering of a few hundred people in Valenciennes (North).

“While there are strong measures to be taken to defend the purchasing power of the French […], the government is doing quite the opposite” with its 2027 budget project providing for 54 billion euros in savings, further estimated the leader of the PCF. “It’s a recession budget, it’s a budget which will paralyze the economy, which will paralyze businesses, and above all kill consumption,” he insisted.

The fire which devastated a building of the Faculty of Letters of Rouen in Mont-Saint-Aignan (Seine-Maritime) early on Saturday is likely of “criminal origin” in view of the “first findings” made, indicated a source close to the matter.

“Informing must be able to be done without fear, without intimidation and without violence,” reacted the news channel which is in the hands of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré. “We deplore any violence against anyone, whether for us or for our colleagues,” the channel said.

The police carried out 40 arrests in Paris on Saturday morning following checks carried out to enforce orders prohibiting demonstrations in large sectors of the capital, according to an initial report from the police headquarters.

The Paris headquarters of CNews was targeted by around a hundred people on Saturday, on the eve of a national day of mobilization, said the Paris police headquarters, which reported 21 arrests.

In Marseille, the main boulevard du Prado was temporarily blocked by trash cans and scooters before being cleared by the CRS who followed in the footsteps of the demonstrators.

In Lyon, "a group of 40 individuals was dispersed" near a bridge over the Rhône connecting the Presqu'île to the city center, "after an attempt to obstruct traffic", according to the prefecture, and a group of around ten people also dispersed near the Feyzin refinery.

In Rennes, around twenty people installed a filter barrier, with trash cans and large pallets, near a large shopping center.

Christophe, a 47-year-old carpenter, a former yellow vest, says he was injured in 2018 during act three by an LBD shot. “Today, we are reaching a level of repression against our own children,” he complains to AFP.

The social mobilization planned for October 17 could bring together more demonstrators than initially anticipated, with the authorities now counting on 150,000 participants in the provinces and some 40,000 in Paris, according to police estimates communicated on Friday.

The authorities have identified nearly 500 potential actions across the country, while more than 90 demonstrations are still in preparation, according to those close to the Minister of the Interior. The government fears incidents in the processions, particularly in Paris and in large cities, where ultra-left activists could, according to it, seek to provoke clashes with the police.

Emmanuel Macron launched a call for appeasement on Friday from Brussels. While reaffirming his attachment to the freedom to demonstrate, the Head of State urged participants to demonstrate responsibility, recalling that the exercise of this right must be accompanied by respect for people and property.