French protest groups and trade unions on Sunday called for further demonstrations, seeking to maintain pressure on the government after mass rallies on Saturday.
The Interior Ministry reported that 410,000 people took part in Saturday’s marches across the country. Authorities deployed 70,000 police officers and gendarmes, which helped prevent a repeat of the widespread unrest, looting and vandalism that occurred on October 17.
Union leaders called for new protests next Saturday, October 31, as well as a nationwide strike on November 5. They said frustration over wages, the cost of living and the quality of public services was spreading far beyond the student movement that first mobilised last month.
“We see an aggregation of anger,” Murielle Guilbert, co-leader of the left-wing Solidaires trade union federation, told BFM TV. She said grievances from students, workers, firefighters and other groups were converging. “We call on people to take to the streets next Saturday.”
The SUD Education teaching union said it would join the October 31 demonstration, while the large CGT union said it would decide during the week. The Yellow Vests movement, which emerged in 2018 as a protest against fuel taxes, also called for mass rallies next Saturday, including sit-ins outside town halls and the National Assembly.
Saturday’s actions, according to different estimates, drew between 410,000 people (government figures) and around 800,000 (CGT estimate). In Paris, the prefecture reported about 110,000 participants, while unions put the figure at up to 250,000. Despite the largely peaceful nature of the marches, clashes erupted in Paris, Marseille and other cities in the evening, with tear gas and water cannons used; the number of people detained was estimated at around a thousand or more.
The protests, which began with students’ demands over education, quickly expanded to include cost-of-living issues and brought together students, workers, Yellow Vests and other groups.
