More than 400,000 people marched across France on Saturday over school funding shortages and soaring living costs, and the biggest protest of the week ended in clashes in Paris. The march began peacefully. Near its endpoint at Porte de Vincennes, some protesters threw projectiles, and police responded with volleys of tear gas and water cannons. The Interior Ministry put nationwide turnout at 410,000, including 110,000 in Paris.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said 64 people had been arrested in connection with the demonstration, and 40 were placed in police custody. Six of those arrested were minors. Most arrests involved suspected weapons offences or participation in a group preparing violence or property damage.

Clashes spread beyond the capital

Police used tear gas in Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand and Strasbourg, and water cannons in Nice and Nantes, French media reported. In Marseille, officers fired tear gas at several dozen people near the march’s endpoint. Authorities had banned rallies in cities including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier. Trade unions have criticised the bans as violations of freedom of expression, a right the constitution protects.

A small protest becomes a national movement

What began last month as a protest over staff shortages at one high school southeast of Paris has grown into a nationwide movement. Students want better schools. Workers want higher wages and pensions. Education Ministry figures show that public middle and high schools lost 15.4 million teaching hours in the 2024-25 school year because absent teachers were not replaced. That equals 7.5 per cent of scheduled teaching time.

Student groups have put forward a joint 10-point plan. It calls for 250,000 more places in higher education, an end to selection through Parcoursup, the national admissions system, more teachers, and repairs to schools and universities. They also want an extra 200 euros (USD 224) a month in student grants and a rent freeze in public student housing.

Macron under pressure in his final months

The unrest is testing Macron’s authority before voters choose his successor in May. His popularity is at its lowest since he took office in 2017. The far-right National Rally has accused his government of failing to protect the public, and it has urged people to channel their anger into votes for the party.

Macron met high school representatives on Friday. They said he had promised to overhaul university admissions, but they called for protests to continue until concrete measures are announced. Organisers from the yellow vest movement have called for another day of rallies on Oct. 31 to defend the right to demonstrate.

Last weekend’s violence still shapes the streets

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had announced a nationwide deployment of up to 70,000 officers, backed by helicopters, armoured vehicles and water cannons. On Monday, Nuñez acknowledged that police had lost control in some cities during last weekend’s unrest, when more than half a million people took to the streets. Some 3,000 shops across France were damaged or looted amid street violence not seen in years. He offered to resign. Macron refused.

Shopkeepers boarded up storefronts across Paris. Gendarmes stood guard beneath the Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre, Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum and Grand Palais, where a major Cézanne exhibit is on display, were all shuttered Saturday. Art Basel opened to the public Friday, but only for the day, after the threat of unrest led organisers to cancel the weekend programme.

Workers and students feel the squeeze

Energy prices in France were 21.3 per cent higher in September than a year earlier. That helped push overall inflation to 3.1 per cent, according to the national statistics agency, INSEE. Camille Chesnier, 27, said she had been unable to find work despite holding an engineering degree and a master’s degree. Teacher Bénédicte Pittion, 46, marched through steady rain with her 16-year-old daughter, Garance, a high school student. Both had backed the movement from the start, but it was their first protest together.

Paris protester Louis Ledoux-Xatard put the public mood into a single line of frustration over inequality.

“Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing. I never imagined that I’d be taking to the streets so much before my thirties.”

For international audiences watching Europe’s economic protests, the scenes in Paris show how quickly a dispute over school staffing can turn into a national confrontation. The government now faces a movement that is young, angry and refusing to go home until it sees concrete measures. Whether the streets calm before the next round of rallies will depend on what Macron delivers.