Masked protesters stormed Marseille City Hall, attacked a police station and looted luxury shops. At least 400 people were arrested across France on Saturday. The government is pointing the finger at the far left.
– “It’s the revolution, we’re storming the Bastille,” shouted the demonstrators as they broke down the door to the town hall at the Old Port in Marseille on Saturday.
Large numbers of masked men stormed into the town hall, toppling a bust of Marianne, the symbol of the Republic, whilst smashing furniture and destroying a TV screen.
Shortly before, masked individuals attacked the municipal police station in the city centre. They set fire to rubbish bins, tore down the plexiglass panels and threw smoke bombs inside. Several attempts to start fires were stopped.
Looters ran riot in the shopping streets, including at a shop belonging to the mobile phone operator SFR. Tourists waved white handkerchiefs to avoid being attacked, reports franceinfo.
– “The hooligans are the far right’s useful idiots,” says Marseille’s Socialist mayor, Benoît Payan.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez puts the number of participants at 550,000 across 110 protest marches against the ‘high cost of living’, 110,000 of them in Paris. The organisers, including the CGT trade union and the student union Union étudiante, claim the figure was 800,000. Former ‘yellow vests’, school pupils, students, climate activists and farmers joined forces.
The violence began before the marches got underway. At the Place de la République in Paris, masked individuals dressed in black clashed with the police, threw fireworks and set fire to several cars and a newsagent’s kiosk. The statue of Marianne in the centre of the square was dressed in a yellow vest. The police responded with tear gas and water cannons. Following a protest outside the headquarters of the TV channel CNews, the police arrested around 20 people.
Rassemblement National leader Jordan Bardella said the attack was the result of an alliance between ‘the far left and criminal groups from the suburbs’, which is a rather roundabout way of referring to non-Western immigrants, who live mainly in the suburbs of France.
Several witnesses have reported on social media that the police were forced to withdraw due to the violent clashes.
In Lyon, demonstrators set fire to a tourist office, according to media reports. In Bordeaux, the demonstration quickly degenerated into clashes between radicals and the police, reports AFP. In Toulon, the police forcibly dispersed violent groups and arrested four people.
On Saturday evening, Nuñez summarised the situation: at least 400 people have been arrested – a provisional figure – and 60 police officers and gendarmes were injured. He condemned the looting in a number of towns.
“Two police officers were taken to hospital unconscious,” said Nuñez.
Over 10,000 police officers and gendarmes were on duty, at least 5,000 of them in Paris.
The unrest began with what is described as a student protest. In mid-September, pupils at a secondary school in Créteil, just outside Paris, protested against dilapidated buildings, overcrowded classrooms and a shortage of teachers. The movement spread and escalated. As of 10 October, the police had arrested over 6,800 people, 86 per cent of whom were minors. Over 800 police officers and gendarmes had been injured as of 13 October. A teenager lost his hand when a grenade exploded.
On Saturday, the picture looked different. Of the 191 people arrested by the police in Paris at 6 pm, 90 per cent were adults, according to the police headquarters.
The Home Secretary’s staff had already warned at midday what was in the offing.
– “There is a very high probability that the far left will cause this afternoon’s demonstration march to descend into chaos,” the staff stated.
The staff described a very strong mobilisation within far-left circles, “who are only out to cause disorder”, and listed attempted looting, attacks on the police, the setting alight of street furniture, and actions against the institutions of power and the media.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu accuses far-left groups of organising the violence.
– Peaceful demonstrations have their rightful place in our republic. The fires, looting and attacks have no such place, says Lecornu.
For weeks, Lecornu has been lashing out at Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, La France Insoumise (LFI). He has accused the party of fanning the flames and seeking to create chaos in the country ahead of next year’s presidential election. LFI supports the student movement. On Saturday evening, Lecornu once again took aim at LFI and warned those who wish to use violence as a prelude to the election.
Mélenchon, LFI’s presidential candidate, praised on X the “tens of thousands of people who are peacefully mobilising” and criticised the news channels’ “images of violence”.
⚡️ On Saturday 17 October, several dozen demonstrators briefly entered the lobby of the Marseille town hall, in the Old Port, after breaking down the door whilst shouting «‘This is the Revolution, we’re taking the Bastille’”. #franceinfo https://t.co/uimv759cDH
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) 17 October 2026
Marine Le Pen, the Rassemblement National’s presidential candidate, believes that legitimate social demands have once again been ‘held hostage by the far left’. Party leader Jordan Bardella wrote on X that only “professionals of chaos” were on the streets, not “working France”. He described the violence as a “convergence between far-left terrorism and criminal groups from the suburbs”. The RN’s ally, Éric Ciotti, condemned “red fascism”.
On Friday, President Emmanuel Macron called for calm from Brussels. The right to demonstrate, he said, carries with it a duty to respect people and property.
The following day, demonstrators toppled the statue of Marianne at Marseille Town Hall.
