French police have arrested dozens and fired tear gas at some protestors Saturday as authorities stepped up security in major cities, aiming to prevent a repeat of last week’s rioting. The nationwide demonstrations are focused on the high cost of living, and a massive turnout is expected again after more than half a million took to the streets last week.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 135 people have been arrested and a variety of weapons have been seized. The items confiscated include metal balls, lead pellets, fireworks, slingshots, steel balls, improvised weapons, a katana and airsoft weapons, he said. Nuñez added that, so far, “there has been no major incident” in the country.
Nuñez previously said as many as 70,000 officers will be deployed nationwide, along with helicopters, armored vehicles and water cannons.
Demonstrations had been banned in the southeast city of Lyon, but about 150 protesters near the city’s center briefly tried to block a road. Police fired tear gas to disperse the group. A 21-year-old student, who spoke to the Agence France-Presse on the condition of anonymity, described authorities as “really mobile.”
“They come and disperse marches before they even form,” the student said. A police helicopter was seen flying over the city, and security forces, armored vehicles and riot police vans were patrolling.
In Orleans, thousands of people marched against a congress held by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party. Le Pen is launching her campaign to succeed Emmanuel Macron as France’s president. Elections will be held in six months, and surveys show Le Pen is best-placed to win. Demonstrators in Orleans protested both Macron and Le Pen.
“Macron resign. Le Pen in prison,” the crowd yelled, according to the AFP. Police put their numbers at 11,000, while organizers said 26,000 took part. About 50 organizations, including labor unions, left-wing parties and student groups, had called for a protest against Le Pen’s nationalist, anti-immigration party. The gathering is expected to continue through Saturday.
Paris prepares for protests
Major museums in Paris are closed and authorities have deployed a sizable police force for a round of new protests Saturday across France, hoping to prevent a repeat of last week’s violent unrest that shocked the country.
Major museums including the Louvre, Orsay Museum, Picasso Museum and Grand Palais — where a Cézanne exhibit is on display — are closed Saturday. Art Basel, one of the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fairs, opened to the public Friday, but only for the day, with the threat of unrest prompting organizers to cancel the weekend program.
Shops on the Champs-Elysees are barricading themselves in ahead of the planned protests in Paris, France on October 23, 2026.
Luc Auffret/Anadolu via Getty Images
The first-ever NFL game in France between the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers remains scheduled for Paris on Sunday, but some associated venues have been shuttered. A pop-up NFL shop and the “NFL House,” where the Super Bowl trophy is on display and community sessions and events were scheduled, were closed Saturday. A similar venue for the New Orleans Saints was also postponed until Sunday. Another NFL pop-up shop remains open in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, the league said. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said earlier this week that preparations for the game had been made in consultation with U.S. and French authorities.
A soccer game scheduled to be held in Paris on Sunday, between Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais, has been postponed until Monday night.
Parisian shopkeepers have been barricading their stores all week. Near Place de la République in Paris, one of last weekend’s hot spots, a bank branch and other businesses were boarded up with wooden panels to deter potential looters.
Some 3,000 shops across France were damaged or looted last weekend. The demonstrations first erupted last month when high school students in the southeast of Paris protested for better conditions, but quickly spread across the country as people took to the streets to demand relief from rising living costs.
A student named Lucas told CBS Saturday Morning that he believed it was “normal for people to be angry.”
“There’s like an escalation because people, we think that the government is not listening,” Lucas said.
Protesters march through central Paris amid fires, smoke, police deployments and clashes during nationwide demonstrations against the high cost of living, on October 17, 2026 in Paris, France.
Firas Abdullah/Anadolu via Getty Images
Protest marches are scheduled in Paris and Marseille, but some other rallies, including in Lyon, Nice and Montpellier, have been banned by local authorities. Cities outside Paris were hit hard by the unrest. In Limoges, a suspected arson nearly destroyed the 19th-century city hall.
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