Some 779 people were arrested across France during the day and evening of Saturday, October 31, according to the Interior Ministry's latest tally published on Sunday. The ministry said the second part of the evening passed "without major incident" during what was the third act of the mobilisation against the cost of living. It counted 291 actions on the public highway, bringing together 320,000 people, including 70,000 in Paris, and said 40,000 checks had been carried out nationwide.
The figures mark a decline from previous weekends. On October 24, the ministry recorded 289 actions and 410,000 participants, 110,000 of them in Paris, while October 17 saw 441 actions and 550,000 people, again with 110,000 in the capital.
On damage and injuries, the ministry reported 515 fires dealt with and 36 shops damaged, three of which were looted, compared with 69 damaged and 24 looted on October 24. At 9pm on Saturday, it said 565 arrests had been made and 116 members of the security forces injured, against 1,435 arrests and 267 injured officers on October 24 and 2,628 arrests and 1,144 injured on October 17. A later passage of the same ministry tally also referred to 159 members of the security forces wounded over the day.
For the Halloween evening alone, from 9pm onwards, 214 people were arrested and 43 members of the security forces injured, compared with 170 arrests and 16 injured in 2025 and 148 arrests and 11 injured in 2024.
The most serious incident was the throwing of a Molotov cocktail at a mobile gendarme at the Porte de Charenton in Paris's 12th arrondissement. The Paris prosecutor's office said an investigation had been opened for "attempted homicide of persons holding public authority", after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described the attack as an "attempted murder" and denounced the "unprecedented violence" of groups of rioters. Press images showed the improvised device exploding at the feet of the officer, who was lightly wounded.
Captain Alexandre, the gendarme burned at the ankle, said in an interview that fear is "contained" at the time. "Afterwards, one does not do this job without fear, because it is what allows you to reason correctly," he said. He described a clear mission to hold the line and the concern, as the fire began to spread, that it might not be possible to put it out. He added that the individuals involved are using "increasingly violent and sophisticated" devices.
A civil security tally cited by Le Figaro put the number of injured demonstrators at 60, all lightly hurt, four of them in a serious condition.
On the business side, CCI France reported 20 shops damaged in the margins of Saturday's demonstrations, far fewer than on previous weekends, when it counted 2,488 affected on October 17 and 50 on October 24. The chamber said turnover for shops near the demonstrations is now estimated at between 60% and 80% below that of a normal Saturday, and expressed concern about the impact on France's attractiveness and on local retailers ahead of the end-of-year holidays.
In Marseille, five people were arrested on Saturday evening after a burglary at a Foot Locker on rue Saint-Ferréol, at the corner of rue Pisançon, which had already been ransacked on October 17. According to concordant sources, police quickly arrested suspects who had tried to force the shop's storeroom, and an police helicopter was deployed. Other shops in the city were damaged, including a wine cellar and a delicatessen on rue Saint-Michel near La Plaine. Some 750 square metres of graffiti were cleaned in Marseille in the morning, in addition to 400 square metres overnight.
In Nice, the Halloween night was described by the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture as calm compared with other years, despite some mortar fire, and 16 arrests were made, half of them in the city. A refusal to comply caused tensions in the Zaïne district of Vallauris, where police were taken to task and a helicopter with a powerful searchlight was called in. In total, 19 minors were returned to their parents under the curfew.
Attention now turns to Monday's return to school after the two-week Toussaint holidays. Pierre Sourzat, head of the Lycéens! organisation, called on RMC for lycées to be blockaded "from Monday", saying several would be blocked the next day and that the group supports all classmates doing so. The Union syndicale lycéenne and the Union étudiante have called for lycées and universities to be blocked on Tuesday and again on Thursday, November 5, a day of interprofessional strike action, while the Unef student union has urged young people to organise in universities on Monday and Tuesday. In early October, the education ministry counted 400 to 500 lycées wholly or partly closed, and access to around 200 establishments was still disrupted in the week before the holidays.
Speaking on TF1's 20 Heures programme, Horizons presidential candidate Édouard Philippe urged lycéens to "seize the hand extended by the government" and return to class, and not to "get in the way of lycéens who want to study". He said their demands had been expressed "sometimes violently, but not always and fortunately so" and were "in many respects founded", arguing that the government, at the end of its mandate and beset by a poor budgetary situation, could do little but had nonetheless taken a step with necessary improvements to Parcoursup. Emmanuel Macron's entourage said the time for a return to class had come, noting that the main lycéen demands had found an answer in government measures, including a "strong evolution" of Parcoursup from the 2027 intake before its replacement in 2028. The president had received lycéen organisations at the Élysée the previous week and called on Thursday for a calm resumption of classes.
Paris's Socialist mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, speaking on BFMTV-Le Figaro's "Grand Oral", said he had been "profoundly shocked" by scenes caused by rioters on October 17, for whom he has "not the slightest indulgence", and warned that "there could have been a tragedy" given insufficient numbers of officers. He described watching from the municipal police crisis cell, with access to all cameras, as gatherings began earlier than expected around 11am to 11.30am with an unusual "physiognomy", and said the situation "turned sour very early". An Odoxa-Backbone Consulting poll for Le Figaro found that 64% of French people now want the student and lycéen mobilisation to stop, with two-thirds of La France insoumise supporters wanting it to continue and Socialist sympathisers split at 53% to 47%.
Sources: Le Figaro.