Hundreds of thousands march in France as police presence and bans shape a calmer but tense weekend

Police fired tear gas in Paris, Marseille and a few other places in France and made over 1,000 arrests. DW's reporter said that by and large, this weekend's protests were far tamer than the previous weekend's, with turnout depressed by a much larger law enforcement presence and a ban on what President Macron called "illegitimate protests."

Still, hundreds of thousands of people across the country turned out. The report raised the question of where the movement was heading and whether it was the beginning of a larger movement, and noted that further protests were planned for the following week.

DW's Paris correspondent Tessa Walter reported that the protest planned for the Place de la République, in the heart of Paris, was moved to the outskirts of the city in the south. Protesters said this felt like a slap in the face, because they wanted to show their presence where it mattered, in the city center.

The correspondent said this was not only the case in Paris. In Metz only one protest was allowed, and in Lyon no protest was allowed in the city center. Protesters argue that these limits are a very direct attack on their basic democratic right to demonstrate.

According to Tessa Walter, the protest in Paris started peacefully in the afternoon but became more and more tense toward 5 or 6 p.m. She said tensions rose on both sides, with demonstrators and police officers alike ready for potential clashes. Demonstrators wore masks and glasses to protect themselves, and police wore heavy protective gear.

Clashes followed. Police threw tear gas and blocked roads leading to the square, which prevented people from moving in and out. Protesters responded with firecrackers and paint thrown at the officers, and some people on the ground were pulled out by police. The correspondent said the police reported around 1,000 arrests and stood guard through the night to prevent more looting. By the time of the report, the area looked calm.

The next protest is set for next Saturday and is organized by the yellow vest movement. Walter explained that the yellow vests came together in 2018 because of fuel prices that were spiking at the time, and that they now speak to people across all levels of society. The yellow vests supported the students the previous day and now want their own protest, where students will probably also show up with their demands.

Walter said this shows the protests have become a demonstration and uprising about living standards and the high cost of living people face in France. The students were set to meet Prime Minister Lecornu the next day to discuss their demands, and she said the coming weeks will show whether the government can turn its promises on the cost of living into concrete action.

DW's correspondent Lisa Louie reported from Orléans, where the National Rally was holding its party congress. The gathering had been scheduled long in advance but fell during weeks of protests, including violent clashes and looting in Paris and other cities the previous week. The party presents itself as the party that will restore order, and it said thousands of people had joined the party over the past few weeks. Louie said these figures cannot be independently verified.

Marine Le Pen, the party's presidential candidate, was due to give her first presidential speech that day, telling the crowd she can bring order back to France. The presidential election is about six months away. Louie said Le Pen is leading current opinion polls, but that six months is a long time and that polls become clearer about two or three months before the two rounds of voting next April and May.

Louie added that party chief Jordan Bardella was re-elected with 98% of the vote, as he was the only candidate. She noted that Le Pen has tried several times to win the presidency without success, but was never as high in the polls as she is now.

Louie described how the protests started with high school pupils who took to the barricades over concrete problems: crumbling classrooms, water dripping onto the floor, and not enough teachers. The protests then widened as other high school students joined, along with people from other backgrounds, including unemployed people and some former yellow vests. According to polls cited in the report, many French citizens understand these demands.

Louie said she sees this as a cry of desperation and despair from young people in France. The turnout the previous day was slightly lower than the week before, but she said the movement is still going strong and that the same anxiety is visible among young people in other countries. France is in dire straits over its budget and needs to save tens of millions of euros next year to reduce its public deficit, which leaves it little room to respond to the demands. Louie said that, in her view, the students will keep protesting.

Donatella Della Porta, director of the Center on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, said she believes the protests are the beginning of a movement. She said it is a moment in which several other movements are converging, and that the movement is led by students.

Della Porta said that beyond students, young people include workers in very precarious positions and unemployed young people from the peripheries and from racialized groups. She said the convergence of teachers and families, trade unions and other movements is already visible. The yellow vests are part of this, along with movements for a free Palestine, diaspora groups, feminist groups, pacifist groups and environmental groups.

Della Porta said the movement is a moment of convergence in the street, with young people and different generations involved. She added that established groups in society, some political parties and elected representatives have also supported the movement and taken part in the protests in various forms.

Asked whether the different groups and demands would make the movement harder to advance, or whether convergence might bring certain demands to the forefront, Della Porta said she thinks the second option is more likely. She said the different streams do not have divergent paths; they aim at more social justice rather than making a revolutionary claim, and they call for less investment in arms and more investment in social justice.

Della Porta said the groups also converge against the ongoing militarization visible in police repression. She described police dressed for war, resembling a military colonial type of police, which affects how people see the situation. She noted that most of those arrested in France are under 18 and belong to a generation that fears being sent to fight and die in battles they do not recognize. She described the movement as both despair and hope, with a sense of empowerment if different claims can find a common platform. Different groups, such as feminists, pacifists, yellow vests and trade unions, will stress different strategies and have different organizational paths, but she sees convergence on the issues people are mobilizing around.

Host Melissa Chan noted that there have been a number of youth movements with similar demands worldwide, citing recent student protests in Serbia, the so-called cockroach protests in India, protests in Morocco the previous year, and university protests in Indonesia. She asked how comparable these movements are and whether any conclusions should be drawn from what looks like an international trend.

Della Porta said the movements have domestic concrete roots. She noted that in Serbia students have led a very large protest movement that is long-lasting and may have a strong political impact on electoral policy. She said what the movements share is a common label, the Gen Z movement, involving young people with the same characteristics worldwide. These young people have lived through several crises during the years of their socialization into adult life, including the financial crisis, the climate crisis and the health crisis of the pandemic, along with fear of war and struggles against genocides and militarization.

Della Porta said the movements are also rooted in two issues within their own traditions: political corruption, which has often been pointed at even in democracies but in different forms than in illiberal democracies or authoritarian countries, and the construction of a collective identity as young people and as nations. She said some of these are also claims for sovereignty against colonialism and for the development of an independent and alternative way of thinking.

The report closed with thanks to Donatella Della Porta, and host Melissa Chan said DW News will continue to follow the French protests and provide updates.