In Caen, “groups of violent individuals engaged in looting and damage,” the Calvados prefecture reported on X.
In Nantes, the procession stopped near the cathedral a few minutes after its departure, under the first shots of fireworks and tear gas. Demonstrators and the police faced each other for more than an hour and a half, with CRS charges, construction site gates moved and projectiles flying towards the police, before the gathering was pushed back into adjacent streets. The crowd re-formed in the city center at the end of the afternoon, with new clashes between police and demonstrators. Several stores were vandalized on the sidelines of the rally.
In Rennes, several dozen individuals dressed in black threw projectiles, such as paving stones or pieces of grilles, at the police, who responded with tear gas and a water cannon. Since then, clashes have followed one another in the streets near Place de la République, making the situation confusing. Around 4:30 p.m., a real estate agency was targeted with its window broken and its armchairs taken out onto the road, before an Orange agency and an optician were in turn attacked.
The Loire prefecture confirmed that a “young adult” in his twenties had been “seriously injured in the hand”, without further details. The injured man was transported to the Saint-Etienne University Hospital, said members of the event's medical staff who took care of him. This young worker's right hand was in tatters and he explained that he had picked up the grenade before it exploded, according to them.
The PS mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, “strongly” condemned the “damage” and “acts of destruction” observed on Saturday in the capital, while “the vast majority of demonstrators” wanted to “march in peace”. “These acts of destruction divert attention from the demands of high school students”, present in the street alongside students, yellow vests and various activists, “and harm the image of their mobilization”, declared the councilor in an interview with Ouest-France. “But I also want to say it with the same firmness: no mobilization should be a pretext for violence against demonstrators,” he continues.
Several stores were looted in downtown Lyon, report our colleagues from Lyon Mag.
Demonstrators confront the police on Avenue Jean Médecin in Nice, reports Ici Azur.
On the sidelines of the October 17 mobilization in Grenoble, thugs targeted the BNP Paribas agency on Cours Lafontaine, reports Le Dauphiné Libéré. The protections installed gave way under the attacks, before the group was dispersed.
“More than 500,000” people participated in the actions and parades organized throughout France on Saturday against the “high cost of living”, according to the CGT, which called on the government to “stop repressing” after the clashes observed between demonstrators and the police. “The government must stop repressing and respond immediately to social demands,” the union said.
A protester had his hand torn off on Saturday in Saint-Etienne by a police grenade thrown by the police, we learned from a source close to the matter. According to initial information, the demonstrator picked up the grenade by hand, the model of which was not communicated by this source.
The demonstration organized for the mobilization of October 17 degenerated into violent riots on Saturday in Bordeaux, with clashes between radical elements and the police, businesses looted and numerous damages. The procession of several thousand people (7,000 according to the Gironde prefecture), which left early in the afternoon, included high school students, students, political and union activists, farmers and many individuals dressed in black and hooded, chanting slogans hostile to the police.
The boss of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier, also present in the Parisian demonstration, also called on the government to “review” its doctrine of maintaining order which, in her eyes, endangers “protesters and police”. “When we do not call on the police to exercise restraint, when we even implicitly call on them to show restraint, we produce an outbreak of tension,” added the leader of the Greens.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon castigated the strategy of maintaining order in Paris. In the capital, “confrontation seems to be the goal of this strategy of “maintaining order”. Lamentable”, commented on X the rebellious leader, present in the procession, accusing the police prefect of having “organized the disorder”.
“I’ve been doing demonstrations since I was a kid, I’ve never seen what happened in Paris,” declared the “Ecologist and Social” MP for Paris, Sandrine Rousseau, on BFMTV. “There were unacceptable scenes in a democracy,” lamented Sandrine Rousseau before calling for “the police to calm down.”
Clashes broke out at Place de Jaude in Clermont-Ferrand on the sidelines of the demonstration this Saturday, October 17, reports La Montagne.
CRS 8, specialized in the fight against urban violence, was triggered in Paris, AFP learns from a source close to the matter.
Violent clashes between several hundred demonstrators and CRS have taken place since 2 p.m. in the city center of Lille, with fireworks, paving stones and glass bottles against the police, who responded with charges and tear gas. A peaceful procession of demonstrators, delayed by clashes nearby, began to march around 3 p.m. Furthermore, demonstrators broke windows at Franklin College, a few meters from city hall.
Several vehicles were set on fire near Place de la République in Paris, as shown in images posted on the social network X by independent journalist Luc Auffret.
A wild procession, that is to say undeclared, was “returned” by the police as it headed towards the Elysée Palace on Saturday, announced the police headquarters (PP). The police pushed back this procession at the corner of rue Boissy d'Anglas and avenue Gabriel.
In Le Mans, demonstrators broke a door to enter the station. The police used tear gas to repel them, reports Le Maine Libre.
