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France counts more than 400,000 marchers as Marseille's rally turns to barricades

Sky News' report from Paris and Marseille follows a protest movement that began with students and now carries cost-of-living anger, with nearly 1,000 arrests shown on screen.

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Sky News Story of October 25, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of Sky News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 150,386 views.

Over 400,000 take part in nationwide protests, says French government

Things we can learn from the video

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0:00Alex Rossi reports from Paris as tear gas is used against a dispersing demonstration.
0:46Protests and clashes spread beyond Paris to cities including Lyon and Bordeaux.
1:02Rossi traces the movement from student concerns about schools to wider anger over living costs.
1:22A vocational teacher and students describe inequality and a lack of resources for education.
2:02Rossi considers how the hard left and hard right are reacting ahead of future elections.
3:32In Marseille, a calm rally near Porte d'Aix turns into barricades, fires and police charges.

More than 400,000 people took part in protests across France on Saturday, according to the French government, and Sky News' report follows the day as it moves from crowded marches to tear gas and street fires.

Alex Rossi opens in Paris amid a demonstration being broken up, explaining that tens of thousands of security personnel had been deployed. "This is a significant test for President Macron and his government," he says. The footage then follows the unrest to Lyon and Bordeaux, while an on-screen caption reports nearly 1,000 arrests after clashes with police.

The movement began last month with student demonstrations in Paris over teacher shortages and run-down school buildings. Rossi says it is now "not now just about teacher shortages and the state of school buildings, but the cost of living." A teacher who has taught plumbing and heating for a decade tells Sky that working conditions keep getting worse.

The second half of the report comes from Marseille, where John Sparks describes a calm rally near Porte d'Aix turning into confrontations. Riot police push crowds back as small groups build makeshift barricades and set fires along the boulevards. A protester there blames cuts to public spending: "We are cutting all social expenses. People cannot afford to live decently."

Rossi also turns to French politics, where the hard left and hard right are already reacting with future elections in mind, and offers his assessment: "Law and order is breaking down, and the country is coming apart at the seams."

The report has drawn about 150,000 views since it went up. It ends in Marseille with police still chasing demonstrators through the tear gas, and Sparks' warning that the demonstrations "are not over."

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