A wave of anti-government protests swept across France on Wednesday, filling streets with smoke, burning barricades, and tear gas as demonstrators rallied against budget cuts and political instability.
The nationwide “Block Everything” campaign posed an immediate test for President Emmanuel Macron and confronted new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu on his first day in office. While the protests did not bring the country to a full halt, they disrupted daily life and sparked hundreds of flashpoints nationwide.
Authorities deployed 80,000 police officers to clear barricades and make arrests, but disturbances persisted. In Rennes, protesters set a bus on fire, while severed electric cables in the southwest halted train services and caused widespread traffic chaos.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau reported nearly 200,000 participants nationwide, though the CGT union claimed closer to 250,000. The ministry recorded more than 450 arrests, hundreds in custody, over a dozen injured officers, and more than 800 protest incidents, including rallies and street fires. Retailleau called the day “a defeat for those who wanted to block the country,” though government data suggested otherwise.
Though smaller than the 2018 Yellow Vest movement, the “Bloquons Tout” protests highlighted a recurring pattern under Macron’s presidency: heavy police deployment, violent clashes, and persistent tensions between authorities and citizens.
Since his 2022 re-election, Macron has faced widespread public anger over pension reforms and nationwide unrest following the 2023 police killing of a teenager in Paris’s suburbs.
The demonstrations intensified the political crisis after the government collapsed on Monday when former Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote. The protests immediately confronted Bayrou’s successor, Lecornu, as he assumed office on Wednesday.
