Follow-Up: France Protest Day Turns More Violent as Arrests Reach 272 by Mid-Afternoon; Tourist Office Set Ablaze in Lyon

Clashes broke out between police and protesters in cities across France on Saturday, October 17, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets over rising costs and declining public services, in some of the country's most violent protests in years, Reuters reported. Some 272 people had been arrested by mid-afternoon, up from 166 at midday, after violent incidents involving hooded individuals in Paris, Marseille, Rennes, Toulouse and Angers, the Interior Ministry said.

The ministry listed attempted looting, confrontations with law enforcement, the setting of fires to street furniture and the targeting of seats of power and media outlets, blaming the unrest on what it described as the 'ultra-left.' In Lyon, in east-central France, protesters set ablaze a tourist office. In Marseille, the mayor said the town hall had been vandalised and that additional police were being sent to the city following talks with the prime minister and the interior minister.

At midday, the ministry had recorded about 140 protest actions outside the Paris region involving more than 30,000 people, with tear gas and water cannon used around Paris's Place de la Republique. The protests began last month at high schools in Paris's poor northern suburbs, where anger over teacher shortages and shabby facilities evolved into a broader movement focused on inequality, public spending and living standards. 'We are fighting because the cost of living is too harsh, because the price of fuel is too high, because high school pupils are being violently attacked and hurt all over the country just for trying to protest and ask for more teachers and decent learning conditions,' Lola, a 19-year-old protester in Paris, told Reuters.

A large police presence was visible in central Paris, with the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe excluded from the routes of two authorised demonstrations, while protesters in high-visibility vests blocked streets, recalling the Yellow Vest movement of 2018. Police tactics have drawn scrutiny: a teenager lost a hand after picking up a stun grenade in earlier protests, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has said more than 900 police officers were injured in previous protests, and the police watchdog is investigating at least two dozen allegations of police violence. France suspended the use of stun grenades during the student demonstrations, but Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said they could be used on Saturday.

The unrest also spilled into neighbouring Belgium on Saturday: several hundred mostly young people protested in central Brussels, in unrest partly inspired by the demonstrations in France, with Belgian student groups protesting rising education costs and reforms they fear will make higher education less accessible. Police used tear gas and water cannon and some protesters overturned a car, according to a Reuters witness. Belgian Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said in a post on X that what is unfolding in Brussels is 'no longer mere protest' and all necessary means would be used to restore order. A protest also took place in the eastern city of Liege.

The Interior Ministry had not yet released final nationwide turnout and arrest figures for the full day as of publication.

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 资料图：法国里昂索恩河畔夜景，山上为富维耶圣母院。Gloumouth1 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，Wikimedia Commons。

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