France Protests: More Than 1,700 Rallies Across Europe
France’s protest movement has spread across Europe, with more than 1,700 protests and riots involving at least 100 people recorded across the continent between September 15 and October 30. Demonstrations in France have focused on education, public services and the cost of living, while Saturday’s turnout fell from earlier rallies.
Mapping France’s protest wave, an analysis of event data found more than 1,700 protests and riots involving 100 or more people across Europe between September 15 and October 30, as demonstrations spread to 30 other countries.
France remained the movement’s center. On Saturday, 146,000 people rallied nationwide, including 46,000 in Paris, according to the Ministry of the Interior. Unions estimated turnout at 250,000 across the country and 75,000 in Paris.
Turnout had fallen from previous weeks, but police deployed tear gas and batons against protesters in Paris. In Lyon, officers fired tear gas at hundreds of people blocking a road.
About 70,000 security personnel were deployed, days after an estimated 575,000 people attended a union-organized rally.
The movement began in mid-September, when high school students walked out over overcrowded classrooms, too few teachers and deteriorating school buildings. It later broadened to include concerns about fuel prices, wages, social housing and public services.
An analysis of data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) found more than 1,200 protests and riots involving at least 100 people in France between September 15 and October 30. Demonstrators raised issues including education, public services and the cost of living.
More than 500,000 people protested nationwide on October 17, according to government estimates. Clionadh Raleigh, ACLED’s chief executive, said the organization recorded an average of 20.5 demonstrations a day in France over the previous five years.
“During the current protest cycle, that has jumped to almost 66 a day, more than three times the usual rate,” Raleigh said on October 19.
Raleigh said protest cycles typically last about 20 days, or 36 days for major movements. ACLED counted the French protests at 45 days and still continuing.
She said 24.2 percent of events in the current cycle were classified as riots, compared with a median of 1.9 percent in previous cycles. Only unrest after the death of Nahel Merzouk in 2023 had a higher proportion, she said.
Police conduct has drawn criticism. On October 28, four United Nations experts mandated by the Human Rights Council expressed alarm over what they called the “excessive use of force” by French authorities against student protesters.
“The scale of the arrests and detention, affecting several thousand people, mainly minors, appears disproportionate and deters demonstrators from exercising their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly,” the experts said.
In Lille, a teenager lost a hand when a grenade exploded during clashes between school protesters and police.
Protests over rising living costs, low wages and a lack of public services have also taken place in 30 other European countries, from Portugal to Poland. The continent-wide count includes more than 1,700 demonstrations and riots involving at least 100 people over the same period.
Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law and policy at HEC Paris Business School, said the protests beyond France did not match the scale of its rallies but could signal wider discontent.
“France is the epicentre of this movement … and there are signs now that this is spreading beyond France,” Alemanno said.
