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IrelandFrance sends 70,000 officers into widening protests
Stacy Meichtry's Wall Street Journal report connects the police deployment to a budget squeeze that is feeding anger over living costs.
The Wall Street Journal
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 290,706 views a day, 25 times a normal first day on this channel (11,783).
France Deploys 70,000 Officers to Contain Escalating Waves of Protests
Student demonstrations have widened into a movement involving trade unions and Yellow Vests, according to The Wall Street Journal's Paris bureau chief Stacy Meichtry. His report puts two pressures side by side: restoring order in the streets and cutting government spending without deepening the anger there.
Meichtry describes peaceful daytime protests in Paris giving way to evening clashes. The footage shows tear gas, water cannons, looted shops and fires at government buildings. He explains that the student movement began about a month earlier, before drawing in other groups.
The police response carries its own risk. "If the government and police forces are too heavy-handed, the risk is that they might end up provoking some sort of violent backlash," Meichtry says.
Behind that immediate dilemma is France's debt and persistent budget deficit. The government is proposing substantial spending cuts, which Meichtry identifies as another source of public anger. The report's point is not simply that police have been deployed, but that enforcement cannot resolve the financial dispute driving people into the streets.
The Short reached about 162,000 views in nine hours, already far beyond the channel's usual full-day audience for that format. WSJ also drew an unusually fast audience for a separate report aboard American warships preparing for possible further strikes on Iran.
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- Channel
- The Wall Street Journal
- Subscribers
- 6,720,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 8,465,758
- Channel views, pace per day
- 739,001 (on a normal day: 1,270,379)
- Video published
- October 24, 2026
- Video views so far
- 161,644 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 290,706
The numbers
The France report passed WSJ's usual first-day Shorts audience within its opening nine hours. The count below is its audience so far, not a completed first day.
