PARIS — A wave of mass protests swept across France Saturday, with dozens of peaceful marches taking place alongside scenes of violent clashes between demonstrators and police forces.

The demonstrations were also a battleground for candidates ahead of next year’s high-stakes presidential election: The far-right’s Marine Le Pen sided with law enforcement while the far-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon backed protesters. 

Throughout the day, media reported incidents in the country’s largest cities including Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille and Paris. Dozens of rioters clashed with law enforcement on the capital’s Place de la République, next to a much larger number of demonstrators gathered for an authorized march that started from Paris’s central square.

Media also reported looting across multiple cities later in the day.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu posted a message on X backing police forces and slamming violent rioters. He accused “ultra-left groups” of “organizing violence” and said looters would be brought to justice. Lecornu is overseeing a crisis meeting on Saturday evening, AFP reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron echoed Lecornu’s comments on Saturday evening, although he didn’t mention “ultra-left groups.”

“No place for violence in our Republic,” he said. “We will stand together against those who seed chaos, who only seek to tear down our institutions and who prevent those who peacefully express their demands from doing it.”

Students, farmers and members of the Yellow Jacket movement, among others, took to the streets on Saturday in a “convergence of struggles” to protest rising living costs, sluggish wages and deep disagreements with the government.

About 800,000 protestors took to the streets across the country, according to organizers. France’s interior ministry said 550,000 people took part in the protests.

“A very large majority of people are protesting without violence,” Paris’s police prefecture said on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday’s demonstrations grew out of the student protests that began last month with school blockades and calls for better study conditions, more teachers and more funding. The movement has since spread nationwide — and become a political issue as the campaign for next year’s presidential election heats up.

In recent weeks, the government has struggled to deal with the crisis — which Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described as “urban violence” — and is hoping the student movement will now fade because of a two-week school holiday that started Friday evening.

“The mobilization is marked by a very strong involvement of the ultra-left movement, which is only looking to cause disorder,” Nuñez’s office said Saturday, adding that the minister reiterated his “instructions of utmost  firmness” to local prefects and police forces.

Footage showed Lyon’s tourist board office engulfed in flames on the city’s Place Bellecour. A police station was vandalized in Marseille, where a group of “rioters” also entered city hall, Mayor Benoît Payan said. He toldBFMTV that “damage was objectively fairly limited,” although the act of vandalism was “unacceptable.” The headquarters of right-wing TV channel CNews in Paris was also targeted, authorities said.

The government has defended the law enforcement response to the student protests despite numerous allegations of police brutality, including incidents that left one teenager with a severed hand and another blind in one eye. Nuñez said the use of “stun grenades” was authorized on Saturday, after a temporary ban on their use against students.

About 163 people had already been arrested in Paris by mid-afternoon, authorities said.

The far-left France Unbowed slammed the police response to the protests.

The party’s presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon participated in the demonstrations in Paris and backed protesters — he also criticized the media for only showing violent clashes while “everything is proceeding peacefully, with tens of thousands of people calmly taking part.”

On the other side of the political spectrum, far-right leaders Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen pledged support for the police. “Legitimate social demands have once again been hijacked by the far left,” Le Pen said, as an increasing number of polls show she could end up in the second round against Mélenchon.

Bardella said on Saturday that protests were made up entirely of “chaos professionals,” adding: “As we said, working France, which is taking the full brunt of inflation and cost-of-living struggles, did not take to the streets today.”

The police and protesters clashed in other European countries on Saturday, too. A student-led protest against corruption and unemployment in Albania’s capital Tirana reportedly turned violent, asdid another one in Brussels.

This story was updated. Victor Goury-Laffont contributed reporting.

The Ukraine war’s spillover into the Black Sea is creating a growing European security and commercial risk: Drones are hitting ships and killing sailors, grain routes are under strain, and insurers and investors are weighing the cost of operating through Ukraine’s ports.

Five commercial vessels have been hit in Bulgarian and Romanian waters over the past week alone, leaving at least four people dead, several sailors missing and others injured. In response, Black Sea countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have raised the issue at NATO, asking for more focus toward the region and joint support, according to two alliance diplomats.

“The attack within Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone is absolutely unacceptable. It constitutes a serious breach of maritime and international law and will further jeopardise safe navigation in the Black Sea,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on X after the attacks last week.

Russia has been attacking Ukrainian ports and cities in the area since the start of its full-scale invasion. But the recent strikes have brought the spillover into NATO territory. If they continue, EU leaders will face pressure to protect Black Sea shipping and keep Ukrainian trade moving.

Those questions will be top of mind at Thursday’s European Council summit. According to draft conclusions obtained by POLITICO, leaders are expected to discuss the “immediate restoration of safe passage for grain cargo ships.”

A wider problem

Russia is not the only country using naval drones in the Black Sea. Ukraine has also used them against Russian-linked shipping. In June, a Ukrainian sea drone exploded in Romania’s Constanța port after Kyiv said it had veered off course because of Russian electronic interference.

“The Black Sea situation is quite dangerous because attacks are coming from both [sides],” said an EU shipping representative, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “You have to worry about both.”

Attribution can also be difficult. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said Wednesday that investigators still have not proven that Russia is behind the strikes — although some have attributed his reticence to his broadly softer approach toward the Kremlin.

Drone operations by both Russia and Ukraine are likely to continue as long as each has the money and production capacity to sustain them, said Cristian Vlas, assistant research manager for Eastern Europe at the think tank ACLED.

Oleksii Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and founder of the Black Sea Security Forum, told POLITICO that a “serious diplomatic initiative” was needed, bringing together Ukraine, Russia and a third-party guarantor, such as Turkey, “to restore freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.”

Grain routes under pressure

The security risk is disrupting routes that carry Ukraine’s harvest to market, with consequences for EU transport links. Black Sea ports are Ukraine’s main export gateway, handling around 95 percent of the country’s grain exports, as well as significant volumes of iron ore. Shipping traffic has fallen as the security risk has grown.

Some cargo is being rerouted to the River Danube, but capacity there has been stretched in recent months as drought pushes water levels to record lows. Operators are trying to add rail capacity, but that risks moving the bottleneck westward to Romania.

Moving more Ukrainian grain overland also risks reviving tensions with farmers in neighboring EU countries, Vlas said. Romanian farmers have worried that Ukrainian produce meant only to transit could stay on the domestic market, he added, while transport operators are already juggling competing demands for capacity.

Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi has warned that millions of tons of unsold grain is piling up, and that farmers who can’t sell won’t be able to afford to resow all their land.

Bulgaria is working with Romania and Turkey on a joint initiative to protect freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, which Radev plans to bring to EU leaders on Thursday.

Following the Black Sea countries’ request at NATO, military officials are likely to look into possible options such as shifting counter-drone systems to the region, the two alliance diplomats said. Radev said Sofia will convene his counterparts in Ankara and Bucharest to examine further proposals, while a senior Bulgarian official called for new joint anti-drone systems with Romania, partly financed by the EU.

Investment at risk

The attacks also threaten what had started to look like a renewed bet on Ukraine’s ports. MSC, the world’s largest container line, was among the biggest and newest investors, reportedly acquiring a majority stake in a container terminal at a port near Odesa in May.

Ukraine has also been offering investors a long-term concession at the Chornomorsk terminal near Odesa. This terminal is one of Ukraine’s largest planned port public-private partnerships and part of what is expected to be a multibillion-euro reconstruction effort involving European companies.

But people who work in Ukraine’s ports say the case for rebuilding is collapsing.

“No one is ready to invest and rebuild, since you know that tomorrow there will be another missile, another pack of drones,” Oleg Grygoriuk, chairman of Ukraine’s Marine Transport Workers’ Trade Union, said.

KYIV — Russia’s Vladimir Putin is preparing for a broader confrontation with Europe amid an uptick in the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks on the continent, Ukraine’s former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has warned.

In an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, Kuleba, who was Ukraine’s foreign policy chief from 2020 to 2024, said that Russia’s continued war preparations and anti-European propaganda are signs that Putin is planning attacks on other European countries.

“Anti-European hysteria is being fueled in Russia, which I interpret as the preparation for a broader conflict with the rest of Europe,” said Kuleba, before adding: “We [Ukrainians] don’t have to drag you — Putin will drag you into the war.”

European officials say Moscow has upped its hybrid campaign across the continent in recent months, using cyberattacks, sabotage and disinformation to disrupt critical infrastructure and weaken support for Ukraine.

Kuleba said the failed drone attack on the Leipzig airport in Germany in August was a sign of “growing preparation” for an offensive on the continent. “They see how your intelligence operates. They see how your security forces operate. They see how you react and they draw conclusions,” he added.

In the aftermath of the incident, the German government concluded that Moscow was responsible for the attack, and ordered a review of security around sensitive locations.

However, Kuleba, who stood down as Ukraine’s foreign policy chief in September 2024, does not think Russia is preparing a full-scale offensive beyond Ukraine. In his view, Moscow is more likely to launch an attack on NATO countries involving drones targeting key infrastructure that would test the alliance’s unity and preparedness.

“The truth is that Russia does not need 400,000 more people to wage that war. It needs five drones,” he said, adding that in the event of an attack, “[Europeans] can call for NATO consultations… can call for restraint. But this will only encourage Putin to make the next step … He will always have enough drone and missile capabilities.”

Kuleba no longer believes Putin can be persuaded to end the war through negotiations. “He’s not looking for a solution, for a pause, and there will be no moment when he will start looking for it,” he said, concluding: “Putin is a guarantee of war: anyone after Putin is a chance for peace.”

According to Kuleba, any attempts at negotiating with Putin, or pushing for peace, are a waste of time. “The sooner we come to terms with reality, the better policies we can develop to address it,” he said.

He noted that while Europe’s political culture is based on “a win-win approach” in which both sides can benefit, Putin’s outlook is very different: “For him, a solution that benefits both sides is not the best option. For him, the world works on the principle of victory and defeat. One side has to win and the other has to lose,” said Kuleba.

The former foreign minister also warned that Ukraine would face its worst ever winter as Moscow ups its attacks against civilians in a bid to break their spirit.

In recent months, Russian strikes have hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and transport links, including bridges over the Dnipro river, as well as homes and civilian sites such as bus stops, schools, postal depots and internet providers. The attacks have disrupted power, transport and daily life as winter approaches.

On Thursday, at least 33 people were killed in a Russian attack on two buses in Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Kuleba explained why he believed Moscow has now sharply escalated its airstrikes: “The bombing of cities is a direct consequence of Russia’s failure to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.” He continued: “The main target of Russian drones and missiles is the Ukrainians’ will to resist — but also the will of Ukraine’s friends abroad to keep supporting it.”

He added:“They don’t just want to turn out the lights in Ukraine. They want to paralyze the country.”

Kuleba described the worst-case scenario in Ukraine as “the collapse of the systems that make life in a big city possible,” such as electricity, water and drainage services.

Could Russia succeed? “I believe Ukraine is too large, too mobile and too adaptable. That’s why I think we’ll get through this winter,” said Kuleba.

“The price will be much higher than last year’s.”

The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, The Telegraph, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.