French police detained 1,314 people during Saturday's nationwide protests, the Interior Ministry said in its updated tally on Sunday, according to France 24 reporting carried by several outlets — a sharp rise from the provisional figure of nearly 1,000 that Interior Minister Laurent Núñez gave on Saturday evening, when he warned the number would rise.
Source: France 24 via Happening Now, Oct 25, 2026
This is the Interior Ministry's final Sunday tally for the same Saturday demonstrations Awaaz Punjab reported on Saturday evening, when the provisional count stood at nearly 1,000 detentions. Read the earlier report
The ministry said 53 members of the security forces were injured, firefighters intervened on 75 fires and 24 shops were looted, Pollar News reported, summarising Interior Ministry and prefecture figures. It gave no count of injured protesters, though ANSA reported a protester was seriously injured in the hand in Toulouse, and Le Monde reported two people suffered serious injuries during police operations, according to Núñez.
Source: Interior Ministry via Pollar News, Oct 25, 2026
In Paris, the prefecture reported 142 people detained, 126 of them held in police custody, Pollar News reported. Clashes were also reported in Marseille, Toulouse, Nice and Tours, and in Lyon about 10,000 people gathered despite a police ban covering a wide perimeter of the city, according to Europa Press reporting summarised by Pollar. Around 70,000 police officers and gendarmes were deployed nationwide — about 20% more than on October 17 — and the ministry said the night that followed was calm.
Source: Europa Press via Pollar News, Oct 25, 2026
More than 400,000 people (yaani about 4 lakh) marched through major French cities on Saturday over the rising cost of living and deteriorating school conditions, in the second straight weekend of unrest, Internewscast reported. Núñez said officers had faced an extremely elevated level of violence from black-clad groups he described as ultra-left extremists who broke away from the largely peaceful marches, while the marches themselves passed without direct attacks on public buildings.
Source: Internewscast, Oct 25, 2026
The unrest is now feeding directly into France's presidential race. Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally is leading opinion polls ahead of elections next April and May to choose a successor to Emmanuel Macron — who is barred from a third term — was due to address about 10,000 party members in Orléans on Sunday afternoon, Internewscast reported. Le Pen has repeatedly accused Macron's centrist government of weakness toward violent protesters, and the reporting said the unrest of recent weeks is widely seen as helping her campaign. Sources: France 24 (ministry tally), BBC (more than 1,300 arrested headline), Interior Ministry figures via Pollar News and Europa Press, Internewscast.
Source: BBC News, Oct 25, 2026