135 Arrested as 70,000 Police Deployed Across France During School Marches

France deployed more than 70,000 police officers on Saturday as government estimates counted at least 400,000 people marching in cities nationwide to support high school students demanding more teachers and repairs to deteriorating school buildings. Trade unions put the turnout figure at double the government's count. In Paris alone, officials estimated 110,000 people walked along the eastern edge of the city.

The interior minister, Laurent Nunez, said 135 people had been arrested across France. Officers confiscated metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana sword and airsoft weapons. Shops were boarded up and many museums closed for the day.

Most of the marches proceeded without incident. Brass bands played in Paris, and children walked alongside their parents and grandparents in the crowd. Some participants carried signs reading "Oppression breeds rebellion" and "The right to protest."

Trouble surfaced at the end of the Paris route near Porte de Vincennes, where masked individuals in black clothing threw glass bottles and stones at police. Officers answered with teargas, water cannon and stun grenades. A bin was set alight and fireworks were fired toward police lines. Teargas was also deployed to keep protesters from reaching city centers in Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse, while bin fires burned during clashes in Marseille.

The government had prepared for larger-scale unrest after the previous Saturday, when public buildings burned, hundreds of shops were destroyed and looted, and at least 2,700 people were arrested. Macron's administration also moved to ban non-union demonstrations it classified as "illegitimate" and to keep protesters away from city centers.

Nadège, a 43-year-old communications worker teargassed at a peaceful demonstration the prior weekend, said she returned to march again. "I'm out again peacefully today to support everyone who is brave enough to demonstrate," she said. "In France, it's our legal right to protest in the street and I'm here to defend that." Jérôme Rodrigues, a figure from the 2018 and 2019 gilets jaunes movement, said the government was pushing demonstrators to the edges of cities "away from places of power."

The protests began in mid-September when students aged 15 to 18 objected to staff shortages, leaking and crumbling buildings, and overcrowded classrooms lacking chairs. Since then, trade unions, teachers and parents have joined the movement. Police investigations are under way after some children and protesters were maimed and injured by explosive police weaponry.

In Orléans, thousands marched against a congress held by Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party. The crowd chanted, "Macron, resign. Le Pen in prison." Le Pen is a frontrunner in next year's presidential election, and Macron steps down next year.