Protests and Clashes: Over 1,000 Detained in France and Italy

MADRID, Spain – Another day of protests in France, with more than 400,000 people, 410,000 according to the government and double that according to organisers, taking to the streets on Saturday in social protests over the high cost of living and against Emmanuel Macron’s government that have been sweeping the country for weeks, especially last Saturday, when among other actions the town hall of Limoges was set on fire. This weekend was thus the second consecutive of mass mobilisations, with riots again in numerous cities that have left at least 1,000 detained, mostly third-generation African migrants.

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The Interior Ministry specified the total number of demonstrators in France, of whom 110,000 were in Paris, while the main French union, the General Confederation of Labour, estimates at almost 800,000 the number of people who answered the calls, including 250,000 in Paris. Most participants in Paris were, in fact, secondary school and university students wearing yellow vests, as well as union members, with the CGT saying in a statement after the demonstration that it is now the turn of the strike and that employers should not be left in peace since they are responsible for the high cost of living and austerity, reiterating its call for a general strike in France on 5 November.

To carry out the protest, the authorities, after what happened just seven days earlier, had ordered a change of route to take the protest out of central Paris and move the demonstration to the outskirts of the capital, a measure that drew widespread criticism, with the march this time setting off from Porte d’Italie and ending at Porte de Vincennes. That did not prevent riots and incidents from occurring again after the demonstration, with Porte de Vincennes the scene of a large number of clashes with police, who had to use water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowds some hours later, with at least 105 arrests, 60 of them minors. This time there were no lootings or attacks against establishments, though authorities said a car dealership was attacked although the assailants failed to get into the shop.

Beyond Paris, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez appeared before the media to confirm that more than 1,000 arrests had been made across the country for the riots and that the figure is expected to be higher, also stressing that the demonstrations passed without incidents although some dangerous groups formed as had been foreseen, saying that thanks to the intervention of the security forces looting had been prevented. On this occasion, Nuñez stressed, there were no targeted attacks against public buildings as there had been the previous Saturday, saying these attacks had been systematically prevented after the attacks on the town halls of Limoges and Marseille and the Lyon tourist office seven days earlier.

Beyond the capital, mass demonstrations were recorded in cities such as Lille, Nice, Marseille, Rennes, Montpellier and Lyon, with at least 15,000 demonstrators in Lille according to the authorities, 17,000 in Marseille, 100,000 according to the CGT, and 10,000 in Lyon according to the Rhône prefecture, with riots also taking to the streets in many of them afterwards. One of the most critical points was Lyon, where police fired tear gas to disperse around 1,000 people who had gathered in the city’s southern Place Jean-Macé outside the area where demonstrations were authorised, with demonstrators unfurling a banner reading More money, less violence and We want teachers, not police.

Tear gas was also used in Marseille, where Maghrebi rioters tried to loot some shops, with police sources reporting the looting of two jewellers in the city’s 5th district and attacks on three other shops, while firefighters had to put out a fire lit next to the demonstration. Elsewhere, around 400 people cut the A72 motorway in Saint-Étienne, and in Grenoble some 400 hooded individuals attacked the security forces with mortars and projectiles, according to local authorities, while in Bordeaux authorities reported that groups of people threw projectiles and erected barricades in Place de la Bourse. Riots and incidents also occurred in Nantes, Strasbourg, Nice, where a group carried out attacks on demonstrators, Caen, Toulon, Tours and Gard.

Saturday was billed as a delicate day in the Italian city of Milan, where thousands demonstrated against the high cost of living but also to defy the new ironclad security strategy imposed by Giorgia Meloni’s government to prevent further looting, with the great northern Italian capital and economic engine of the country, a symbol of luxury and fashion worldwide, waking up fortified with a reinforced security protocol and 500 soldiers sent by Meloni to accompany police officers, with the mission of protecting the city centre from riots like those of the previous weekend when hundreds of young people, many of them minors, took advantage of a peaceful demonstration to storm, wreck and loot numerous shops.

Thousands demonstrated again on Saturday in Tirana, the Albanian capital, in a new day of protests against the Albanian government led by students and opposition parties, with police using charges, tear gas and water cannon against large groups of demonstrators, with authorities reporting the deployment of 2,500 officers to try to prevent further riots in protests that began in May, this Saturday with attacks on official headquarters and dozens detained and more than 300 injured among demonstrators and officers, with university professors, artists and opposition parties such as the Democratic Party calling for participation and pointing directly at Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Protests called in Italy led, for the second consecutive weekend, to clashes between police and demonstrators in Rome and other cities such as Bologna, with burning containers and stone throwing, with tension rising late in the afternoon in the capital of Emilia-Romagna where a demonstration that had begun peacefully descended into episodes of violence in several streets of the centre, with groups of young people with covered faces erecting barricades, setting fire to rubbish containers and throwing bottles, stones and pyrotechnic material at officers.

Emmanuel Macron represents what he wanted to be and was not, with France literally set ablaze in the streets in the final sprint of his mandate, just six months before the elections, with the country mobilised in violence and protests that do not cease and provoke curfews to oppose a system and a doctrine that do not respond to their demands, according to experts, for many the last straw at the end of Macronism, that way of doing politics from the centre that has ended up pushing France to the extremes, with more demonstrations called for Saturday and the government announcing the deployment of 70,000 officers across the country.

Italy is also living its second consecutive weekend of mass protests, with thousands taking to the streets in cities such as Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, Bari and Palermo in a new day of mobilisations in which riots occurred again as last weekend, called by the so-called 17 October Movement, with one of the main flashpoints in Turin where demonstrators repeatedly tried to break the police cordon, while in Rome there were moments of tension near the Colosseum where a march under the slogan Italy out of the war called by the Anti-Imperialist Axis passed without incidents, with hundreds of young people chanting slogans against police and the government.

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French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez indicated late on Saturday that security forces had detained close to 1,000 people in the demonstrations held across the country and warned that the number would rise significantly, stressing that the marches had generally gone well and arguing that the difference from the chaos, destruction and pillaging of a week earlier had to do with anticipation by the security forces and the reinforcement of the security operation, with some 410,000 demonstrators according to the government, double that according to organisers, taking to the streets across France in the second consecutive weekend of mass mobilisations, this time with fewer riots than seven days earlier, a slight decrease compared with the 550,000 reported by the Interior Ministry the previous weekend while unions put attendance at around 800,000 at the events called in protest “at the cost of living.”