The thousands gathered in the French capital have begun walking along the designated 1.5km route from Porte d’Italie to Porte de Vincennes.
The metro trains headed to the 13th arrondisement starting point were packed.
The march has been organised by a coalition of unions, the CGT, CFDT, FSU, and Solidaires, supporting student federations, and there are the flags and banners of these various grooups.
But there are also protesters of all stripes – many young people, but also families, office workers, retirees.
Protesters holding signs and the tricolour march against rising living costs in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP
Demonstrations kick off across France's major cities amid heavy security
People have also begun marching in the port city of Marseille, France’s second-most populous city. Thousands had gathered for the procession down the Canabière main street.
In Lyon, crowds have set off from Place Jean-Macé, chanting slogans and singing, flanked by rows of police officers. Crowds are also marching in Toulouse and Lille.
Protestors hold placards with messages about state purchasing power, the protection of public services, and fiscal and social justice, in Lille, northern France Photograph: François Lo Presti/AFP/Getty Images
Meanwhile protest restrictions remain in place in other cities, where last-minute legal appeals have failed.
In Bordeaux, demonstrators have shown up at the Place de la Bourse despite a city-wide ban and tram cancellations.
“Whether the protest is banned or not, we will support the high school students’ movement and we won’t abandon them. We are parents, we were young once, and we are also workers,” said Brigitte Couderc, general secretary of the CGT-Commerce and Services union in the Gironde region told Le Monde.
The Bordeaux protest at the Place de la Bourse Photograph: Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images
In Nice, police said they had ordered the dispersal of a crowd of several hundred people who had gathered at Place Masséna despite all gatherings being banned.
France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, earlier said that there was a turnout of about 35,000 people in marches across the country, compared with 60,000 last Saturday. He said authorities had counted 136 public street actions, down from 264 the previous weekend.
My colleague Angelique Chrisafis has been at Place d’Italie in the French capital.
Many cardboard signs held by demonstrators in Paris referenced the dozens of ongoing inquiries into mutilations and injuries by police weapons in the four weeks since high school protests began.
One 21-year-old student from a Paris science faculty that is currently blockaded by demonstrators, said: “We feel in France that we are increasingly living in an authoritarian regime that is trying to stop our democratic right to protest in the street.”
A protester in the Paris march on 24 October 2026 holding a protest sign featuring the cartoon character Daria with the message 'You're standing on my neck' Photograph: Angelique Chrisafis/The Guardian
The thousands gathered in the French capital have begun walking along the designated 1.5km route from Porte d’Italie to Porte de Vincennes.
The metro trains headed to the 13th arrondisement starting point were packed.
The march has been organised by a coalition of unions, the CGT, CFDT, FSU, and Solidaires, supporting student federations, and there are the flags and banners of these various grooups.
But there are also protesters of all stripes – many young people, but also families, office workers, retirees.
Protesters holding signs and the tricolour march against rising living costs in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP
Thousands of retired people and others also marched in the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Saturday, to demand that state pensions should be protected.
Pensions have become a key battleground ahead of next month’s snap election, with the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, arguing that the conservative opposition Popular party wants to privatise pensions.
The movement is centered at a tent camp protest that has remained in the capital’s Puerta del Sol square for almost a month.
Demonstrators in Madrid on Saturday. Photograph: Óscar del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images
A man holds up a placard at the Madrid march. ‘7,291’ refers to the number of elderly people who died in care homes in Madrid during the Covid pandemic. Photograph: Óscar del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images
French police make 135 arrests, interior minister says
France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has said that police have made 135 arrests in relation to the nationwide protests, and seized a variety of weapons.
Weapons confiscated included metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana and airsoft weapons, Nuñez said. He added that, so far, “there has been no major incident”.
Police conducting security checks in the Place de la République, Paris, on Saturday. Photograph: Mouneb Taim/Anadolu/Getty Images
An anti-government rally is taking place in the Albanian capital, Tirana, after days of violent unrest in the city.
Protesters have been calling for the prime minister, Edi Rama, to resign since last week, and demanding action against corruption and poor living standards. More than 300 people have been injured in the protests amid clashes with police, with dozens of demonstrators detained and damage to government buildings.
Protesters outside the prime ministers’s office in the Albanian capital, Tirana. Photograph: Hameraldi Agolli/AP
“There is a lot of anger,” activist Sidorela Vatnikaj told AFP, labelling the movement a “revolution”.
“It’s not a matter of only students, it’s not a matter only of environmental struggles ... It’s a matter of the state of rights and state of law.”
AFP is reporting that police in Lyon, south-east France, fired teargas to disperse about 150 protesters near the city centre – where demonstrations had been banned – when they briefly tried to block a road.
A 21-year-old student, speaking anonymously, told AFP: “The police are really mobile ... They come and disperse marches before they even form.”
Demonstrators are on the move in Orléans, where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party is holding its congress.
Thousands of people are marching, Agence France-Presse reports, shouting anti-fascist slogans and calling for Le Pen to be imprisoned, and for the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to resign. Police put the number of marchers at 11,000, while organisers said 26,000 took part.
The protest march in Orléans. Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/Reuters
The Guardian’s Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis has been speaking with more demonstrators in the French capital.
Pierre, 60, a retired banking consultant, said he was demonstrating to support young people’s demands for improvements in education.
I think young people need to take part in building the future they will live in. I have an eight-year-old granddaughter, I want her to have a brighter future than the sombre times we are facing today. There is a complete refusal by the government to listen to people’s demands and feelings.
Pierre, 60, with his messages: “The young people are waiting for responses to their demands” and “Mr. President, France is speaking to you, listen to us” Photograph: Angelique Chrisafis/The Guardian
Emma, 35, a science podcaster, was protesting for the second Saturday.
I want to be part of a mass of people standing up for the schoolchildren protestors and saying the misery of the few is the concern of us all. I feel anger and despair at the rise of fascism and misery in the world and I want people to unite to campaign for something better.
Paris protester Emma holding a sign that reads: “The suffering of a few is the concern of all”. Photograph: Angelique Chrisafis/The Guardian
Further student and youth demonstrations across the political spectrum are expected in Italian cities today after major anti-government protests kicked off last weekend.
Like in France, several of those demonstrations at times spiralled into looting and clashes with police.
Prime Minister Georgia Meloni – deeply unpopular with many young people – has deployed 500 extra soldiers to Milan and announced harsher penalties for minors, after major looting there last week.
Police said the ransacking in Milan had involved about 2,000 youths. Police have stepped up ID checks at railway stations and deployed surveillance drones.
500 soldiers from the ‘Folgore’ Parachute Brigade, one of the Italian Army’s elite units, have been deployed to patrol Milan’s central sites Photograph: Andrea Carrubba/Anadolu/Getty Images
In Rome, authorities have also stepped up patrols and shut down luxury shopping strips and are restricting access around the Circus Maximus and Piazza del Popolo.
Right-wing students have been staging a demonstration this morning, in response to largely left-wing protests held last week which railed against Meloni’s government and called for better schools, affordable housing and cost-of-living measures.
An anti-war protest is also scheduled in a few hours time at Piazza della Repubblica.
Members of right-wing student groups marched through the streets of Rome this morning in a rally organized in opposition to recent left-wing student protests Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
