Hundreds arrested following clashes amid ‘Block Everything’ protests in France

Protesters have clashed with police in Paris and elsewhere across France during a day of nationwide action under the slogan “Block Everything”.

Demonstrators, who blocked roads and set fires, were met with volleys of police tear gas.

The government announced hundreds of arrests, as demonstrations against French President Emmanuel Macron, budget cuts and other complaints spread to big cities and small towns.

Although falling short of its self-declared intention to “Block Everything”, the protest movement that started online over the summer caused widespread hot spots of disruption, defying an exceptional deployment of 80,000 police who broke up barricades and swiftly took people into custody.

Interior minister Bruno Retailleau said that a bus was set on fire in the western city of Rennes. In the south-west, fire damage to electrical cables stopped train services on one line and disrupted traffic on another, government transport authorities said.

The protests appeared so far to be less intense than previous bouts of unrest that have sporadically rocked Mr Macron’s leadership. They included months of nationwide so-called yellow vest demonstrations that impacted his first term as president.

After his re-election in 2022, Mr Macron faced firestorms of anger over unpopular pension reforms and nationwide unrest and rioting in 2023 after the deadly police shooting of a teenager on Paris’ outskirts.

Nevertheless, demonstrations and sporadic clashes with riot police in Paris and elsewhere on Wednesday added to a sense of crisis that has again gripped France following its latest government collapse on Monday, when prime minister François Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote.

The protests immediately presented a challenge to Mr Bayrou’s replacement, Sebastien Lecornu, who was installed on Wednesday.

Groups of protesters repeatedly tried to block Paris’ beltway during the morning rush hour and were dispersed by police and tear gas. Elsewhere in the capital, protesters piled up rubbish bins and hurled objects at police officers.

Firefighters were called to the downtown Chatelet neighbourhood after a fire broke out in a restaurant, threatening to spread to an adjacent building.

By evening, the government said police had made 473 arrests nationwide, including 203 in Paris, with 339 people in custody and 13 officers lightly injured.

It counted 812 protest actions across the country — 550 rallies, 262 blockades and 267 street fires — and warned that tensions were flaring in Rennes, Nantes and Paris after officers came under attack.

The government put the turnout at 175,000, while the CGT union, one of France’s largest labour confederations, claimed closer to a quarter of a million.

Road blockades, traffic slowdowns and other protests were widely spread – from the southern port city of Marseille to Lille and Caen in the north, and Nantes and Rennes in the west to Grenoble and Lyon in the south-east.

Afternoon gatherings of thousands of people in central Paris were peaceful and good humoured, with placards taking aim at Mr Macron and his new prime minister.

The “Block Everything” movement gathered momentum over the summer on social media and in encrypted chats, calling for a day of blockades, strikes, demonstrations and other acts of protests.

The movement, which has grown virally with no clear identified leadership, has a broad array of demands — many targeting contested belt-tightening budget plans that Mr Bayrou championed before his demise — as well as broader complaints about inequality.

The spontaneity of “Block Everything” is reminiscent of the yellow vests. That movement started with workers camping out at traffic circles to protest a hike in fuel taxes, sporting high-visibility vests.

It quickly spread to people across political, regional, social and generational divides angry at economic injustice and Mr Macron’s leadership.