Protesters target CNews Paris HQ as France's cost-of-living protests begin, 61 arrested

A blockade at CNews headquarters

Around 07:00 on 17 October, about 100 hooded people blocked the car park entrance of CNews's Paris headquarters in the western part of the capital. The building also houses the newsroom of Europe 1. According to the Paris police prefecture, the group threw projectiles and broke windows, and images shared on social media showed overturned barriers. Police intervened, and 21 people were arrested in connection with the operation. The channel belongs to the media group of Vincent Bolloré, a conservative billionaire. Le Figaro reported that several newsrooms, described by protesters as 'enemy propaganda channels', had been named in the protesters' discussion groups beforehand.

CNews responded to the AFP news agency with a statement:

Informing must be possible without fear, without intimidation and without violence.

Clashes across France

Two unauthorised processions also formed in central Paris in the late morning, and police moved to disperse them. Near the Gare du Nord, a group of about 100 people headed toward rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, where roughly 200 protesters, some of them masked, faced helmeted officers and the situation tensed. Police fired tear gas to push back the crowd at the entrance to the street. Near Montparnasse station, AFP counted about 150 young people who then marched into rue de Rennes chanting 'Macron nous fait la guerre et sa police aussi', and police charged them and blocked a large part of the group against a police cordon. Le Figaro put the number of participants at about 100 at the CNews site, not the few dozen first reported.

In other cities, the prefecture said a group of 40 people was dispersed near a bridge over the Rhone in Lyon, and a further group of about ten was dispersed near the Feyzin refinery. In Marseille, the boulevard du Prado was briefly blocked with bins and scooters before riot police cleared it. In Rennes, about 20 people set up a filtering barricade near a large shopping centre. Around 09:30, police had arrested 40 people in the Paris area, most for carrying weapons or banned protective gear such as masks and goggles against tear gas. Shopkeepers on the Champs-Elysees boarded up their shopfronts despite a demonstration ban in that area.

What the day was meant to bring

The call to mobilise brought together former yellow vest protesters, high school and university students, climate activists and even farmers, all protesting against the high cost of living. Le Monde cited authorities expecting 40,000 demonstrators in Paris, and NOS reported that 150,000 activists were expected in the rest of France. The interior ministry anticipated hundreds of actions across the country, and the government said it was preparing for the protests to escalate into riots. The mobilisation fell on the first day of the school holidays, which made its size hard to predict. An intersyndicale also called public and private sector employees to strike and demonstrate on 5 November, mainly over wages and public services. Six months before the presidential election, the protests have put youth issues, including study conditions, back at the top of the political agenda.