About 106,000 people, according to the Ministry of the Interior, compared with the 200,000 calculated by the organizers, went out onto the streets of the main French cities this Saturday for the fifth consecutive day of social protests. The demonstrations, which began in the education sector, have spread in order to denounce the high cost of living and police violence.
The figures mark a step back compared with last Saturday, when the Ministry of the Interior counted 146,000 demonstrators, versus the 250,000 people that the convening organizations claimed. This Saturday’s day has generally unfolded peacefully, although the authorities have reported 121 arrests and incidents recorded above all at the end of the marches.
In Paris, up to three different calls have been held: one against the bill on the presumption of legitimate use of weapons by the security forces, an international march against child violence, and a gathering of the Yellow Vests on the occasion of the Fifth Act of the movement against the high cost of living. In total, more than 60 demonstrations have been counted across the country.
The Ministry of the Interior has emphasized that "at this time, the situation throughout the national territory remains calm and under control" and has specified that, of the 106,000 people mobilized, 24,000 have gathered in the capital. Throughout the day in Paris, 22 people were arrested, three of them minors, "mainly for carrying category D weapons, hurling insults, and violating the bans on appearing or demonstrating," according to police sources cited by the French chain BFMTV.
The spokesperson for the union Los Secundarios, Henry Blunden, has reiterated that "I continue to support these mobilizations for the simple reason that (the president) Emmanuel Macron has not listened to the demands of young people."
The students, who initiated the protests, were received by the authorities at "a social conference that served for nothing," in the words of Blunden. "Now we need to move on to a new stage of the movement," with more peaceful mobilizations "to make ourselves heard," he has defended.
From Yellow Vests, Benjamin Ball has pointed out that it is "an even more crowded day than usual" thanks to the presence of various groups, including climate protest groups. "There is a whole town that is getting up and telling the government and the multimillionaires they serve: enough already!", he said.
For his part, a member of the Interfac Committee Ile-de-France for student mobilization, Mathis Aversenq, has argued that "the movement does not lose strength," since the Executive "feels compelled, week after week, to make more announcements, which are in reality crumbs." "Those who will give up, those who will run out of strength first, will be those in the government," he added. "We keep the mobilization at a very high level (...). You will see it on Tuesday, with hundreds of thousands of people still on strike and demonstrating," he stressed.
The call to protest has also been followed in other major cities such as Marseille, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse, Lyon or Rouen. In several of these cities there were clashes and the Police resorted to the use of water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters.