‘Block Everything’ protests turn new French PM’s first day into chaos

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PARIS (AP) — A day of anti-government action across France on Wednesday saw streets choked with smoke, barricades in flames and volleys of tear gas as protesters denounced budget cuts and political turmoil.

The nationwide “Block Everything” campaign presented a challenge to President Emmanuel Macron and turned Sébastien Lecornu ’s first day as prime minister into a baptism of fire.

Although falling short of its self-declared intention of total disruption, the protests still managed to paralyze parts of daily life and ignite hundreds of hot spots across the country.

The deployment of 80,000 police officers broke up barricades and dragged hundreds of protesters into custody, yet flashpoints multiplied. In Rennes, a bus was torched. In the southwest, electrical cables were severed, halting train services and snarling traffic.

By evening, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said nearly 200,000 people had taken to the streets nationwide, while the CGT union, one of France’s largest labor confederations, claimed closer to 250,000.

His ministry reported more than 450 arrests, hundreds held in custody, over a dozen officers injured, and more than 800 protest actions — from rallies to street fires — across the country. Retailleau called the day “a defeat for those who wanted to block the country.” Yet the government’s own tally told a different story.

The “Bloquons Tout,” or “Block Everything,” protests did not match the scale of France’s 2018 yellow vest revolt, but still underscored the cycle of unrest that has dogged Macron’s presidency: mass deployments, bursts of violence, and repeated clashes between the government and the streets.

After his reelection in 2022, Macron faced firestorms of anger over unpopular pension reforms and nationwide unrest and rioting in 2023 after the deadly police shooting of a teenager on Paris’ outskirts.

Still, demonstrations and sporadic clashes with riot police in Paris and elsewhere Wednesday added to a sense of crisis that has again gripped France following its latest government collapse on Monday, when Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote.

The protests immediately presented a challenge to Bayrou's replacement, Lecornu, installed Wednesday.

Groups of protesters who repeatedly tried to block Paris' beltway during the morning rush hour were dispersed by police using tear gas. Elsewhere in the capital, protesters piled up trash cans and hurled objects at police officers. Firefighters were called out to a fire in a restaurant in the downtown Châtelet neighborhood, where thousands of protesters gathered peacefully.

Road blockades, traffic slowdowns and other protests were widely spread — from the southern port city of Marseille to Lille and Caen in the north, and Nantes and Rennes in the west to Grenoble and Lyon in the southeast. Authorities reported demonstrations in small towns, too.

Afternoon gatherings of thousands of people in central Paris were peaceful and good-humored, with placards taking aim at Macron and his new prime minister.

“Lecornu, you’re not welcome,” read a placard brandished by a group of graphic design students. Another read: "Macron explosion."

“One prime minister has just been ousted and straight away we get another from the right,” said student Baptiste Sagot, 21. “They're trying to make working people, young students, retirees — all people in difficulty — bear all the effort instead of taxing wealth.”

France’s prolonged cycle of political instability, with Macron’s minority governments lurching from crisis to crisis, has fueled widespread discontent.

Paris protester Aglawen Vega, a nurse and public hospital union delegate, said anger that fueled the yellow-vest protests never went away and that she wanted to defend France’s public services from privatization.

“We’re governed by robbers,” she said. “People are suffering, are finding it harder and harder to last out the month, to feed themselves. We’re becoming an impoverished nation.”

Some criticized the disruptions.

“It's a bit excessive,” said Bertrand Rivard, an accounting worker 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.”

“Block Everything" gathered momentum over the summer on social media and encrypted chats, including on Telegram. Pavel Durov, Telegram's Russian-born founder now under investigation in France for alleged criminal activity on the messaging app., said he is “proud” the platform was used to organize anti-Macron rallies.

The movement's call for a day of blockades, strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and other acts of protest came as Bayrou was preparing to cut public spending by 44 billion euros ($51 billion) to rein in France's growing deficit and trillions in debts. He also proposed the elimination of two public holidays from the country’s annual calendar — which proved wildly unpopular.

Retailleau, a conservative who allied with Macron’s centrist camp to serve as interior minister in Bayrou’s government and is now in a caretaker role until Lecornu puts his Cabinet together, alleged Wednesday that left-wing radicals hijacked the protest movement, even though it has an apparent broad range of supporters.

He described “very numerous, sometimes violent” attempts to block the country but said those efforts had ultimately failed. Appeals for non-violence accompanied its online protest calls.

Lecornu, who previously served as defense minister, now inherits the task of addressing France’s budget difficulties, facing the same political instability and widespread hostility to Macron that contributed to Bayrou’s undoing.

Macron’s governments have been on particularly shaky ground since he dissolved the National Assembly last year, triggering an unscheduled legislative election that stacked the lower house of parliament with his opponents.

The spontaneity of “Block Everything” is reminiscent of the yellow vests movement that started with workers camping out at traffic circles to protest a hike in fuel taxes, sporting high-visibility vests. It quickly spread to people across political, regional, social and generational divides angry at economic injustice and Macron’s leadership.

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Associated Press journalist Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this report