Why France’s Protests Won’t End
On Saturday, Oct. 24, France took to the streets for a second weekend. The Interior Ministry counted 410,000 people nationwide and 110,000 in Paris, while unions put the national figure at 800,000. Demonstrations took place in about 800 locations. The Paris march was mostly peaceful, but clashes broke out at the end of the route, and about 1,000 people were detained nationwide.
To understand these protests, start with France’s fiscal numbers. National debt stands at about 119% of gross domestic product, and this year’s deficit is projected at 5.4%. Interest payments alone run about 74 billion euros a year, more than the budgets for schools or defense. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s 2027 budget plan is a 54-billion-euro austerity package aimed at bringing the deficit down to 5.0%, including a public-sector wage freeze, health spending cuts and pension savings.
The problem is that there are no votes to pass it. Lecornu’s government holds no parliamentary majority. Opposition parties have little reason to cooperate with austerity ahead of the presidential election in spring 2027. The fiscal math has to improve no matter who governs, and the measures that improve it win votes from no one. That is where the stage for the protests is set.
The spark came from schools. Protests that began in late September at high schools in the poor northern suburbs of Paris were about teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and dilapidated buildings. On Oct. 5, a 15-year-old student in Lens lost a hand when a police stun grenade exploded, and on Oct. 6, some 266,000 people marched nationwide. Then living costs piled on: inflation was 3.1% in September, energy prices were up 21.3% in a year, and household purchasing power has been falling for two years.
One distinction matters here. The people on the streets are not one crowd. Most are students, teachers, parents, union members and families marching peacefully. Saturday’s Paris march had a festive air for much of the afternoon, with brass bands playing and families walking together. Their demands are specific: more teachers, repaired school buildings, measures on living costs and maintained public services.
The violence happens at the edges of those marches. At the end of a route or on the way into a city center, small groups of masked youths throw bottles and stones, set fire to bins and loot shops. The interior minister has blamed far-left activists and criminal gangs. By the numbers, about 1,000 detentions out of more than 410,000 demonstrators is a tiny fraction, but cameras point at that fraction. Unlike last weekend, the minister said, there were no targeted attacks on public buildings this weekend.
The contrast with the first weekend makes the distinction clearer. On Oct. 17, the Interior Ministry counted 550,000 people and organizers claimed 800,000, and looting and arson broke out in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Limoges. The 19th-century town hall in Limoges burned until its roof collapsed, about 2,400 people were arrested over the weekend, about 1,000 police officers were injured, and more than 3,000 businesses were damaged or looted. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign, saying authorities had lost control in some cities, and President Emmanuel Macron refused. Localized night curfews were imposed in some areas.
This weekend was relatively calmer because the government added 10,000 officers, deploying 70,000 nationwide, and stepped up pre-emptive searches. But the disruption to daily life continued. The Louvre closed, along with the Musée d’Orsay, the Orangerie and the Picasso Museum, and both houses of the Paris Opera suspended performances. Luxury shops around Place Vendôme boarded up their windows. In the world’s most visited country, the protests are reaching directly into tourism and commerce.
So why don’t the protests end? Because there is not one reason. First, the fiscal math does not go away: whoever governs must reduce the deficit, and reducing it touches someone’s pocket. Second, without a parliamentary majority, passing a budget is a chain of negotiations, and negotiations get harder as an election approaches. Third, the grievances are not single-issue: schools, prices, health care and policing methods have brought different people onto the same streets. Fourth, street protest is a long-established form of political participation in France. As the yellow vest movement showed in 2018, once a street movement catches fire, it does not cool easily, and each harsh policing response adds a new grievance.
The next flashpoints are already set. Budget review resumes on Oct. 27, and a large general strike is planned for Nov. 5. When Moody’s kept France’s Aa3 rating on Oct. 23, its stated assumption was passage of a deficit-reducing budget. The demands of the street and the rating agency’s assumption are pulling on the same budget in opposite directions, and as long as that holds, the protests will not easily end.
