PARIS—Tens of thousands of left-wing demonstrators marched along the eastern edge of Paris on Saturday, in a third straight weekend of nationwide protests marked by a Molotov cocktail attack on a gendarme, clashes in several major cities, and a call by far-left student unions for new blockades of high schools and universities from Tuesday.
The Interior Ministry counted 320,000 demonstrators across France, including 70,000 in Paris, down from 410,000 the previous Saturday and roughly 550,000 on Oct. 17, when rioters looted hundreds of shops. Organizers claimed nearly 500,000 participants, including 200,000 in the capital.
According to the French Interior Ministry, 779 people were arrested nationwide, 116 police officers were injured, and 36 stores were damaged.
At an evening press conference on Saturday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said every march had contained groups of rioters and looters, “many of them driven by the ultra-left and the radical far left,” who attacked police with the goal of reaching the city centers “with unheard-of violence.”
He listed Paris, Montpellier, Toulouse, Rennes, Marseille, Nantes, Angers, and Tours as cities where groups of several hundred people had tried to break through police lines with mortar fireworks, paving stones, and other projectiles, and said firefighters had to put out numerous fires.
The most serious incident took place at the end of the Paris march near Porte de Charenton, where a Molotov cocktail landed on the shield of a mobile gendarmerie unit and set a gendarme alight before his colleagues put out the flames. He ended up being slightly injured, Nuñez said.
“When you throw a Molotov cocktail at a police line, I call that attempted murder,” the minister said, stating that everything would be done to identify the perpetrators.
The Paris prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday, Nov. 1, that it had opened an attempted murder investigation.
He also took issue with television tickers announcing that the marches had gone well.
“No, there was an enormous amount of tension, an enormous amount of violence, and it had to be dealt with,” he said.
A masked rioter prepares to throw a projectile at police officers near a burning barricade during violent clashes in Paris on Oct. 31, 2026, as unrest erupts during another weekend of nationwide protests. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
Nuñez pointed to calls posted on ultra-left websites urging people to gather at 8 p.m., cover their faces, and use Halloween night to loot, vandalize, or attack public buildings.
“They called for revolution, for insurrection, for the night of darkness,” he said, describing an attempt to create “an insurrectional climate, a climate of quasi-revolution.”
A Capital Under Lockdown Again
For the third Saturday in a row, Paris looked like a city under lockdown. More than 40 metro and RER stations were closed, and shopkeepers along the route boarded up their windows with plywood or kept their shutters down.
France’s seats of power, including the Élysée Palace, the prime minister’s office, and the National Assembly, were heavily guarded, even though the authorized march took place several miles to the east. Overnight curfews also restricted access to Place de la République and Les Halles, two areas ransacked on Oct. 17.
A man wearing a Ghostface mask from the horror movie “Scream” raises a hammer and sickle in a communist salute to protesters marching through Paris on Oct. 31, 2026. A Palestinian flag hangs behind him. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
The march’s route remained the subject of a legal battle until the last minute, when the Conseil d’État, France’s highest administrative court, upheld the police prefect’s ban on the traditional Bastille-to-Nation route, forcing demonstrators onto the outer boulevards.
Some 70,000 police and gendarmes were deployed nationwide, and Nuñez said 40,000 checks had been carried out on roads and in train stations, 15,000 of them in the Paris region, to intercept weapons. Face coverings, Halloween masks included, were banned around the demonstrations.
Mélenchon, Red Flags, and the ‘Great Replacers’
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise and a candidate in April’s presidential election, marched in the Paris procession. He later wrote on X that President Emmanuel Macron “will have to give in or go” and accused the media of waging a “panic campaign.”
In Paris, many communist, Palestinian, and Algerian flags dotted the procession. The flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran was also waved.
A protester waves the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran as demonstrators march through Paris on Oct. 31, 2026, during another weekend of nationwide protests attended by left-wing and far-left activists. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
Some protesters chanted calls to “free French Muslims” and to “take down systemic Islamophobia.”
Demonstrators who identified themselves as immigrants cheered that they were the “great replacers,” a reference to the “great replacement” theory of French writer Renaud Camus, which holds that Europe’s native populations are being supplanted through immigration.
Some Chinese students also joined the protest, mingling with the French demonstrators. None of them agreed to give their real names.
One waved a large red flag reading “Long Live Communism.” Another, who did not speak French, told The Epoch Times he had come from Germany and had been supporting activists for several years, but did not specify which type of groups he supported.
A Chinese student (L) waves a “Long Live Communism” flag alongside another protester holding a “Long Live the Commune” banner during a demonstration in Paris, as left-wing and far-left activists joined a third weekend of nationwide protests marked by renewed violence and clashes with police, on Oct. 31, 2026. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
In Marseille, where the prefecture had banned any demonstration in the city center, an undeclared march of some 10,000 people set off from the top of the Canebière, with many Soviet, Cuban, and Palestinian flags in its ranks, Le Figaro reported.
Clashes with riot police broke out on Boulevard Chave in the late afternoon and continued into the evening.
Police fired tear gas in Lyon when demonstrators tried to reach the center and used a water cannon in Toulouse against an unauthorized march of several thousand people, while in Rennes, the prefecture reported “hundreds of hostile individuals” attacking officers.
Unrest Spreads Through Europe
Similar left-wing rallies took place in some 30 German cities on Saturday.
An initiative called “Gen Z regelt” (“Gen Z’s got this”) organized these protests “for education, health, climate protection and an affordable life” and opposing the return of military conscription.
Some protests in Germany also turned violent on Saturday night.
In central Frankfurt, rioters smashed shop windows, looted stores, and stole weapons from a gun shop, which police later recovered. Rioters also threw stones, bottles, and Molotov cocktails at officers, Frankfurt police said on X, calling the event “violent riots” and urging citizens “to avoid the city center or leave the area.”
In Cologne, police cut a march short after protesters threw stones, used fireworks, and covered their faces in violation of a ban. Officers used water cannons to disperse the crowd.
In Hamburg, protesters fired fireworks at police and set barricades on fire. Officers responded with water cannons and tear gas.
In Portugal, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Lisbon once again to protest the housing crisis. The movement has faced criticism from the Portuguese right, which accuses left-wing and far-left groups of driving the protests.
In The Hague, Netherlands, protests broke out after calls to demonstrate circulated online. According to Dutch police, 34 people were arrested, and one officer was taken to hospital with suspected hearing damage after fireworks were thrown at police. As in Paris, many shops across the city had boarded up their windows amid fears of rioting.
On Oct. 30, large crowds took to the streets across Italy following a call to demonstrate by the Italian trade union USB. The union estimated that more than 1 million people participated in protests across 70 cities, while the Interior Ministry put the figure at 255,000. Violent clashes between demonstrators and police broke out in Rome, Turin, Mestre, Vicenza, and other cities, according to Corriere della Sera.
French riot police advance through thick clouds of tear gas during clashes with protesters in Paris on Oct. 31, 2026, as another weekend of nationwide demonstrations descends into violence. Etienne Fauchaire/The Epoch Times
New Blockades From Tuesday
As the Paris march got underway, Sabrine Kharbach, spokeswoman for the far-left Student Union, announced that students would block high schools and universities on Tuesday and again on Thursday, when labor unions have called a day of strikes and demonstrations, in response to the ban on the route the organizers had requested.
Ryad Rani, president of the High School Students’ Union, said the blockades would go on “as long as it takes.”
Protesters are also calling for an “Act IV” of the protests next Saturday, Nov. 5.
