Streets in flames as protests erupt
A day of anti-government action across France on Wednesday as the Block Everything protests saw streets choked with smoke, barricades in flames and volleys of tear gas as protesters denounced budget cuts and political turmoil.
The nationwide protests presented a challenge to President Emmanuel Macron and turned Sébastien Lecornu’s first day as prime minister into a baptism of fire.
Although falling short of their self-declared intention of total disruption, the protests still managed to paralyze parts of daily life and ignite hundreds of hot spots across the country.
The deployment of 80,000 police officers broke up barricades and dragged hundreds of protesters into custody, yet flashpoints multiplied. In Rennes, a bus was torched. In the southwest, electrical cables were severed, halting train services and snarling traffic.
By evening, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said nearly 200,000 people had taken to the streets nationwide, while the CGT union, one of France’s largest labour confederations, claimed closer to 250,000. His ministry reported more than 450 arrests, hundreds held in custody, over a dozen officers injured, and more than 800 protest actions- from rallies to street fires- across the country.
Retailleau called the day “a defeat for those who wanted to block the country.” Yet the government’s own tally told a different story.
Echoes of the yellow vest movement
The Block Everything protests did not match the scale of France’s 2018 yellow vest revolt, but still underscored the cycle of unrest that has dogged Macron’s presidency: mass deployments, bursts of violence, and repeated clashes between the government and the streets.
After his reelection in 2022, Macron faced firestorms of anger over unpopular pension reforms and nationwide unrest in 2023 after the deadly police shooting of a teenager on Paris’ outskirts.
Still, demonstrations and sporadic clashes with riot police in Paris and elsewhere 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 Bayrou’s replacement, Lecornu, installed Wednesday.
“Another from the right”
Groups of protesters who repeatedly tried to block Paris’ beltway during the morning rush hour were dispersed by police using tear gas. Elsewhere in the capital, protesters piled up trash cans and hurled objects at officers. Firefighters were called out to a blaze in a restaurant in the downtown Châtelet neighbourhood, where thousands of protesters had gathered peacefully.
Road blockades, traffic slowdowns and other actions spread from Marseille to Lille and Caen in the north, from Nantes and Rennes in the west to Grenoble and Lyon in the southeast. Demonstrations were also reported in smaller towns.
Afternoon gatherings in central Paris were largely peaceful, with placards taking aim at Macron and his new prime minister. “Lecornu, you’re not welcome,” read one. Another declared: “Macron explosion.”
“One prime minister has just been ousted and straight away we get another from the right,” said student Baptiste Sagot, 21. “They’re trying to make working people, young students, retirees- all people in difficulty- bear all the effort instead of taxing wealth.”
A weary nation
France’s prolonged cycle of political instability, with Macron’s minority governments lurching from crisis to crisis, has fuelled widespread discontent.
Paris protester Aglawen Vega, a nurse and public hospital union delegate, said the anger that fuelled the yellow vest protests never went away. “We’re governed by robbers,” she said. “People are suffering, are finding it harder and harder to last out the month, to feed themselves. We’re becoming an impoverished nation.”
Some criticised the disruptions. “It’s a bit excessive,” said Bertrand Rivard, an accounting worker on his way to a meeting in Paris. “We live in a democracy and the people should not block the country because the government doesn’t take the right decisions.”
Organised online
The Block Everything protests gathered momentum over the summer on social media and encrypted chats, including Telegram. Pavel Durov, Telegram’s Russian-born founder now under investigation in France, said he is “proud” the platform was used to organise anti-Macron rallies.
The movement’s call for blockades, strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and other acts of protest came as Bayrou prepared to cut public spending by €44 billion to rein in France’s deficit and debt. He also proposed eliminating two public holidays, a plan that proved wildly unpopular.
A new prime minister under pressure
Retailleau, a conservative who allied with Macron’s centrist camp to serve as interior minister in Bayrou’s government, alleged Wednesday that left-wing radicals hijacked the protest movement, though support appeared broad-based.
He described “very numerous, sometimes violent” attempts to block the country but said those efforts had ultimately failed. Appeals for non-violence accompanied the online protest calls.
Lecornu, previously defence minister, now inherits the task of addressing France’s budget difficulties, facing the same instability and hostility to Macron that brought down Bayrou. Macron’s governments have been shaky since he dissolved the National Assembly last year, triggering elections that left his centrist alliance without a majority.
The spontaneity of the Block Everything protests is reminiscent of the yellow vest movement that began with workers protesting fuel taxes and quickly spread across political, regional and social divides, fuelled by anger at economic injustice and Macron’s leadership.
Source: this article is adapted from an article by the Associated Press
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