International Desk
11 September
Sandeep Dhand Ludhiana
Journalist
Just a day after the fall of Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government, France witnessed a wave of angry protests across the country. Demonstrators blocked roads in Paris and other cities, set vehicles on fire, and clashed with police. Security forces responded with tear gas and made around 250 arrests in the first few hours of unrest.
The protests are driven by public anger over budget cuts worth €44 billion, proposed earlier by Bayrou before losing power. President Emmanuel Macron has since appointed Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu as the new Prime Minister, marking France’s fourth change of leadership in less than a year. Protesters, however, are demanding not only a reversal of spending cuts but also Macron’s resignation.
The movement began online with the slogan “Block Everything” and quickly spread to the streets, despite the deployment of 80,000 police officers nationwide. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau reported incidents of buses being torched in Rennes, power supply disruptions in the southwest, and damage to railway services.
The demonstrations extended from Marseille in the south to Lille and Caen in the north, though analysts noted they appeared weaker compared to previous mass protests under Macron’s presidency.