Protests roll across Europe as France counts nearly 1,000 detentions and Italy holds 371, officials say

Mass protests rolled across Europe on Saturday, Oct. 24, with the largest crowds in France and clashes in Paris, several Italian cities, Tirana and Brussels, according to AFP, Euronews, the BBC and other outlets. France’s Interior Ministry said late Saturday that it estimated 410,000 people turned out in nationwide demonstrations over the cost of living, 110,000 of them in Paris, AFP reports; the CGT, one of the unions organising the rallies, estimated 800,000 nationwide and 250,000 in the capital (AFP). CBS News reports the ministry counted about 298 protests and notes that no explanation for the gap between the two counts emerged right away (CBS News).

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told journalists that police detained “nearly 1,000” people across the country, AFP reports, and that officers faced “an extremely elevated level of violence” from black-clad extremists. He said the marches themselves had “passed off well” in cities, but that “ultra-left” groups threw projectiles and aimed fireworks at police to provoke clashes (AFP). CBS News quotes him as saying some shops and businesses suffered looting but that “the scale was far smaller” than a week earlier, and that he expected the number of detentions to rise significantly (CBS News).

Nuñez said two people suffered serious injuries, according to AFP: one in Toulouse, where a 20-year-old man reportedly had fingers blown off, and one in Clermont-Ferrand (AFP). CBS News adds that he gave no further detail on either person’s condition or on how the Toulouse injury happened (CBS News). Authorities had prepared up to 70,000 officers nationwide, along with helicopters, armoured vehicles and water cannon, CBS News reports (CBS News).

In Paris, police at the last minute ordered the union-organised march moved from Bastille, in the centre, to Porte d’Italie on the city’s edge, AFP reports. Union representative Murielle Guilbert called it “scandalous” that President Emmanuel Macron had barred protesters from demonstrating “where we wish to demonstrate” (AFP). The front of the march ended without incident at Porte de Vincennes, CBS News reports, but clashes broke out at its tail; AFP reporters saw police use batons and tear gas, and officials said they also used a water cannon (CBS News; AFP). Nuñez said “several thousand radical activists” had “gathered at the rear of the march, including around 500 individuals identified as rioters,” according to CBS News (CBS News).

Paris figures vary by source. AFP cites Paris police as saying officers checked more than 3,000 people and detained 65 at the demonstration, while CBS News cites the Paris prosecutor’s office as counting 64 people detained, including six minors, with 40 held in police custody (AFP; CBS News). This desk could not reconcile the one-person gap.

Clashes spread well beyond the capital. AFP reports clashes in Paris, Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse, and says police fired tear gas to keep protesters in Lyon, Lille, Montpellier, Nantes and Toulouse from reaching city centres (AFP). A Marseille march drew 17,000 people according to police and 100,000 according to unions, AFP adds (AFP). In Grenoble, the local prefecture said nearly 400 “masked individuals” committed acts of vandalism and attacked police “with mortars and projectiles,” the BBC reports (BBC).

Other events marked the day in France. In Orléans, thousands of people marched against a congress of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, AFP reports; CBS News gives a police count of 11,000 and an organisers’ count of 26,000 (AFP; CBS News). The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso museum and the Grand Palais all stayed closed on Saturday, according to AFP (AFP). The Yellow Vests, the loosely organised movement behind disruptive protests against Macron eight years ago, said they would hold another round of protests on October 31, AFP and CBS News report (AFP; CBS News).

As of Saturday evening, CBS News reports, France had seen no repeat of the major street violence and rioting of a week earlier (CBS News). That weekend, more than 2,700 people ended up detained across France, the BBC and Euronews report, and CBS News cites Nuñez as saying some 3,000 businesses suffered damage or looting then (BBC; Euronews; CBS News). The government has blamed the hard-left France Unbowed party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon for what it says amounts to stoking violence, Euronews reports, and an LFI deputy mayor it interviewed, Guillaume Lescaut, rejected that claim (Euronews).

Italy saw its own wave of marches and clashes. Italy’s Public Security Department said nine people faced formal detention, 87 faced referral to prosecutors and 371 people went to police offices and stayed there for a time, 110 of them minors and 69 foreign nationals, while officers identified 4,292 people, ANSA reports (ANSA; desk translation). Euronews, citing a police statement, describes the 371 as briefly detained during protests in eight cities (Euronews).

Euronews reports that near Largo di Santa Susanna in Rome, demonstrators threw bottles and set off firecrackers at a police cordon, and police answered with water cannon; in Turin, officers used tear gas at the Mosca Bridge; in Bologna, paramedics treated an injured young protester on Via Marconi; and in Florence, some demonstrators tried to break through a riot police cordon near the Santa Trinità Bridge (Euronews). In Rome, protesters gathered under the slogan “Keep Italy out of the war,” according to Euronews (Euronews).

Milan, hit by violent unrest on Oct. 17 and 18, stayed on particularly high alert, Euronews reports. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government ordered an additional 500 soldiers to the city, and police carried out more than 150 searches in Milan, Monza and about 20 other cities on Saturday morning as part of investigations into the previous weekend’s violence, Euronews reports (Euronews). Crowd estimates for Milan differ: Euronews’ written report and Sky TG24 put a combined march at around 10,000 people, while a Euronews video report counts around 3,000 (Euronews; Sky TG24; Euronews video).

In Albania, thousands of people rallied in Tirana for a fresh anti-government protest, and police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, Euronews reports; authorities said they deployed 2,500 officers, while The Guardian puts the deployment at more than 2,000 on what it calls the 12th day of student-led protests (Euronews; The Guardian). Authorities said more than 300 protesters and police have suffered injuries in clashes since mid-October, according to Euronews (Euronews). Opposition Democratic Party supporters burned pillows that Prime Minister Edi Rama had placed outside his office as a symbolic invitation to dialogue with students, Euronews adds (Euronews).

Rama warned that “just as the urban terror was intense, concentrated, and prolonged, so too will the response from the state be prolonged and persistent,” Euronews reports (Euronews). Students demand lower tuition fees, more state investment in education and action against corruption in the education system, according to Euronews, which says the wider anti-government protests began in May over a luxury hotel project linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s family (Euronews). Kei Brisku, head of the Albania Rehabilitation Centre for Trauma and Torture, told The Guardian of growing concern over “the mass and random use” of rubber bullets (The Guardian).

Euronews notes that demands differed from country to country (Euronews). Spanish authorities said about 25,000 demonstrators marched through Madrid demanding protection for the state pension scheme, The Guardian reports (The Guardian). Euronews lists the marchers’ demands as linking pensions to actual inflation, raising the minimum pension to match the minimum wage, closing the gender pension gap and shielding the public system from privatisation (Euronews). In Lisbon, protesters marched for affordable housing, Euronews reports (Euronews). In Brussels, police used tear gas and pepper spray during clashes with anti-government demonstrators calling for better conditions in the education system, the BBC reports, while Euronews describes luxury shops boarded up against a repeat of last week’s looting and clashes it calls limited by comparison (BBC; Euronews).

This desk read AFP’s latest-developments page, CBS News, the BBC and Guardian live pages, eight Euronews reports, ANSA and Sky TG24, plus three X video posts read through X’s API, as of about 4 p.m. PDT Saturday (1 a.m. Sunday in Paris). Two Associated Press reports on the protests blocked automated access, so this desk did not read them. It did not read the French Interior Ministry’s or Italy’s Public Security Department’s own statements; those figures come through the outlets named. Italian quotations appear in desk translation. The map above uses OpenStreetMap data and shows locations only.