Clashes broke out in Paris as a mass march ended Saturday, after more than 400,000 people rallied across France over school funding and rising living costs in a renewed challenge to President Emmanuel Macron. The government said police made nearly 1,000 arrests nationwide, a figure Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said would rise significantly as additional arrests were counted.

The Paris demonstration began peacefully, one week after widespread rioting and looting during protests across the country. Violence erupted near the march’s endpoint in eastern Paris, where masked protesters threw objects and fireworks at police. Officers responded with clouds of tear gas, deafening sound grenades and water cannons, while megaphone announcements urged demonstrators to disperse.

Some protesters panicked when tear-gas canisters landed among them and fled while screaming. Veteran demonstrators shouted after them: “Don’t run!”

The Interior Ministry estimated nationwide turnout at 410,000, down from the 550,000 it reported for the previous weekend. The CGT union — one of France’s largest labor organizations, which helped organize some of Saturday’s demonstrations — estimated that nearly 800,000 people participated. The ministry counted 110,000 protesters in Paris, where authorities restricted the march to the city’s southeastern edge, away from the center. The CGT estimated the Paris crowd at 250,000. Gaps of that size between official and organizer counts are a recurring feature of major French demonstrations, leaving the true scale of turnout a matter of which figure readers choose to weigh.

The unrest, which began more than a month ago with high school protests demanding increased funding and more teachers, is testing Macron’s authority during the final months of his presidency before voters choose his successor in May. The succession contest is already taking shape, and the government’s handling of the unrest has quickly become a theme in it.

The far-right National Rally has accused Macron’s government of failing to protect the public and urged people to direct their anger toward the ballot box in support of its candidate, Marine Le Pen. On the far left, presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon has supported the demonstrators and criticized police tactics that have left some teenage protesters with life-changing injuries.

By dusk Saturday, violence had broken out at the end of some of the 289 protests recorded nationwide by the Interior Ministry. Street fires burned in Marseille and Lyon. French media reported that police used tear gas in Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, and water cannons in Nice and Nantes. In central Nice, far-right extremists fought with demonstrators, and regional authorities said 11 people were arrested.

Nuñez said the government had deployed 70,000 police officers, supported by helicopters, armored vehicles and other resources. He said the expanded security operation helped prevent a repeat of the widespread looting and damage to shops seen the previous weekend.

The movement began last month after protests over staff shortages at a high school southeast of Paris spread nationwide. Students called for more education funding, while workers demanded assistance with surging costs for fuel and other necessities. That anger over costs is echoed in data: energy prices in France were 21.3% higher in September than a year earlier, contributing to overall inflation of 3.1%, according to the national statistics agency, INSEE.

In Paris, Bénédicte Pittion, a 46-year-old teacher, marched alongside her 16-year-old daughter, Garance, a high school student. It was their first protest together.

“The young people who have been demonstrating have not been heard, and as a parent and as a teacher, I stand with them,” Pittion said.

Garance said she had been “really scared” after seeing the violence the previous weekend, but believed that staying away would give the government a victory.

Macron met with high school representatives Friday. The students said he had promised to overhaul university admissions, but they called for the protests to continue until concrete measures were announced. Whether concrete measures follow that pledge is now the immediate question for the movement.

Soumaya Abed, a 58-year-old nurse wearing a red CGT union vest, said Paris authorities were trying to suppress the protests by forcing demonstrators to march on the capital’s outskirts rather than in the center. The Louvre and other major museums in central Paris closed exceptionally because of the unrest.

“But it won’t stop the movement. It won’t stop students from demanding better conditions in schools,” Abed said.

Other demonstrators voiced anger over poverty and wealth inequality under Macron. Camille Chesnier, 27, said she had been unable to find work despite holding an engineering degree and a master’s degree.

“There are enormous numbers of people in the same situation as me but who aren’t privileged and who find themselves living on the streets and in squats and, frankly, it’s very tough,” she said.

Police estimated that 17,000 people attended the protest in Marseille, while the CGT put the figure at 100,000. In Toulouse, in southwestern France, authorities said 26,500 people joined the demonstrations. Authorities banned rallies in cities including Lyon, Nice and Montpellier.

Trade unions criticized the bans as violations of freedom of expression, which is protected by the French constitution.

Thousands of people also marched Saturday in Orléans, south of Paris, in a separate peaceful demonstration against the far right. Le Pen’s National Rally was holding a two-day congress in the city.

Gendarmes stood guard beneath the Arc de Triomphe, while shopkeepers boarded up storefronts across Paris. Near the Saint-Lazare train station, Akram Ahmed, a 34-year-old contractor, was boarding up an optician’s shop.

“I got the call last night,” Ahmed said. “The owner seemed desperate. He said I was saving his life.”

Art Basel, one of the world’s most prominent contemporary art fairs, opened to the public Friday but only operated for that day. Organizers canceled the weekend program because of the threat of unrest. Alongside the exceptional closure of the Louvre and other central Paris museums, the cancellation illustrated how the unrest has reached beyond the streets into the city’s commercial and cultural life.

Student groups are seeking 250,000 additional places in higher education and an end to selection through Parcoursup, France’s national university admissions system. Their joint 10-point plan also calls for more teachers and repairs to schools and universities.

The groups are seeking relief from everyday costs as well, including an additional 200 euros ($224) per month in student grants and a rent freeze in public student housing.

Paris protester Louis Ledoux–Xatard said he was frustrated by inequality.

“Looking at countries like the United States, we don’t want to end up like them, where part of the population has everything and the others have nothing,” he said. “I never imagined that I’d be taking to the streets so much before my thirties.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com: https://fortune.com/2026/10/24/french-police-tear-gas-water-cannons-protests-violence/