French police detained about 250 people on Wednesday as nationwide demonstrations under the banner “Bloquons Tout” (“Block Everything”) produced road blockades, fires and clashes with officers on the same day President Emmanuel Macron installed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister.
The interior ministry said 159 people were arrested in Paris by midmorning and roughly 100 others were taken into custody elsewhere in France. Protesters tried repeatedly to block Paris’s ring road during the morning rush hour and were dispersed with tear gas. Authorities reported hot spots of unrest from Marseille in the south to Lille and Caen in the north, and from Nantes and Rennes in the west to Grenoble and Lyon in the southeast.
The Ministry of the Interior said an exceptional deployment of about 80,000 police officers was used to break up barricades and clear blockades. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, serving in a caretaker role, said a bus was set ablaze in Rennes and that in the southwest fire damage to electrical cables halted one train line and disrupted another. Images and video from several cities showed burning trash cans, makeshift barricades and skirmishes between masked demonstrators and police who used tear gas.
The protests — organized via social media and encrypted messaging over the summer and described by participants as leaderless — targeted a range of grievances including planned budget cuts, perceived threats to public services and broader discontent with Macron’s governance. Organizers had called for a day of blockades, strikes, boycotts and demonstrations aimed at disrupting normal activity.
The unrest came three days after the collapse of the previous government when Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote. Bayrou had been preparing a package of austerity measures to cut about 44 billion euros ($51 billion) in public spending, including proposals to eliminate two public holidays, a plan that proved highly unpopular and helped fuel opposition.
Lecornu, who served as defense minister under Macron, now inherits the task of steering a fragile minority government through mounting fiscal pressures and public discontent. The protests presented his first full day in office with an immediate test of authority and public order.
Protesters and bystanders offered differing views on the demonstrations. Aglawen Vega, a nurse and union delegate at a public hospital who took part in the Paris actions, said she was defending public services and accused the government of governing for the wealthy. "We’re governed by robbers," she said, adding that many people were struggling to make ends meet and that the current unrest could swell into a broader social movement.
Conversely, some members of the public criticized the disruptions. "It’s a bit excessive," said Bertrand Rivard, an accounting worker who said he was on his way to a meeting in Paris. "We live in a democracy, and the people should not block the country because the government doesn’t take the right decisions."
Retailleau accused small groups of hard-line extremists of hijacking parts of the protests, saying they wore masks and black clothing and sought confrontation with police. He also warned that some elected officials backing the movement were trying to "create a climate of insurrection." Protest organizers and many participants said calls accompanying the online mobilization urged nonviolence, while acknowledging that anonymous or militant elements had joined some demonstrations.
The “Bloquons Tout” movement bears echoes of the 2018–19 yellow vest protests that began over fuel taxes and broadened into sustained unrest against perceived economic injustice and Macron’s leadership. France also experienced waves of unrest in 2023 after the police killing of a teenager on the outskirts of Paris, and months of contentious protests after Macron’s 2022 reelection and subsequent pension reforms.
Officials said the day’s actions, while disruptive, were less intense overall than some previous bouts of unrest that have periodically rocked Macron’s presidency. Still, the demonstrations deepened a sense of political crisis following the abrupt fall of Bayrou’s Cabinet and underscored the challenges facing Lecornu and the president as they seek to push through fiscal consolidation measures amid limited parliamentary support.
As the government moves to form a new Cabinet, authorities said they would continue policing operations to prevent new blockades and protect critical services. Political leaders and public-sector unions were expected to respond in the coming days, and organizers signaled the potential for further actions if plans to slash spending proceed.