Police used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse crowds in Paris after tens of thousands of people marched largely peacefully on Saturday to protest the high cost of living and insufficient school funding.

The clashes late in the day mirrored tensions in other French cities, including Lyon and Bordeaux. In Grenoble, close to 400 masked individuals dressed in black attacked security personnel and property, according to regional authorities. Some 2,000 did so in Paris, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez.

About 410,000 demonstrators took to the streets across France, including some 110,000 in the capital, the Interior Ministry said, indicating lower turnout than the previous weekend. The French government had said it planned to deploy 70,000 security officials, including elite anti-terror forces, to avoid a repeat of nationwide violence and looting a week ago that caught law enforcement flat-footed.

“The marches went off well,” Nuñez told reporters on Saturday evening. “We should be thankful that freedom of expression was able to be exercised, but regret that a number of individuals were out to do only one thing: cause the marches to degenerate.”

Many protesters held union flags and placards criticizing the police and President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Student groups and labor unions have called for more demonstrations until the government abandons its budget plan and boosts spending on public services.

As the march reached its end in the rain on the eastern side of Paris, a number of groups — often wearing black helmets or hoodies, goggles and facemasks — squared off with police.

In Nantes, in western France, police used a water cannon to stop individuals from entering a location where protests were banned.

Last week’s nationwide demonstrations drew more than half a million people and turned violent as rioters attacked public buildings and broke into stores across the country, including in Paris, fought with police and set fire to cars.

“Once again today, security forces were confronted with an extremely high level of violence,” Nuñez said. “Thanks to the intervention of law enforcement, many acts of looting were prevented. Thanks to the intervention of law enforcement, there were no targeted attacks on public buildings, as happened on Oct. 17.”

He added that there had been about 1,000 arrests and said he expected the number to rise significantly.

Authorities in Paris restricted Saturday’s main march to the southeastern edge of the city, between Porte d’Italie and Porte de Vincennes, avoiding more traditional routes through the center.

Police with loudspeakers earlier ordered people to clear the Place de la Bastille, known as the birthplace of the French Revolution in 1789, from where the demonstration had previously been planned to kick off.

Shops in Paris, including many luxury boutiques, boarded up windows and hired additional security personnel, and some shutting entirely. Three popular attractions — the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay and the Picasso Museum — were closed on Saturday, and a scheduled football match between Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique Lyonnais in Paris was postponed.

Parts of Paris were operating as normal on Saturday, though.

A “Hail Mary” event was held by the city and the National Football League along the Seine River by Notre-Dame cathedral ahead of Sunday’s New Orleans Saints-Pittsburgh Steelers game. Fans on river tour boats sailed past, waving gold pompoms over their heads and wearing black jerseys, the uniform colors of both teams. The city’s iconic Eiffel Tower was also open for business.

Soldiers were helping to guard sensitive buildings. Helicopters and armored vehicles known as Centaurs were also made available. Some cities, including Lyon, banned protests on Saturday and extended curfews.

Macron on Thursday acknowledged “planning failings and elements of surprise” behind last weekend’s events. The French leader, who’s postponed a tour across West Africa planned for next week, blamed ultra-left groups for what he called seditious acts.

There were indications on social media that hooligans plan to converge on France’s capital next week as well, according to Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire.

“We’re preparing for a long-term situation, over several weeks,” he told Le Parisien newspaper, estimating that the cost to city hall could reach into the tens of millions of euros.

Backed by a disparate group of social media figures, students, unions and left-wing parties, Saturday’s demonstrations were framed as an “Acte II,” or second round, of the protest movement. Much of the anger is targeted at Macron, whose popularity has slumped six months before the end of his second term.

The movement still has majority support among the public, according to a Cluster 17 poll of 3,000 adults for L’Opinion carried out Oct. 19-22, although it’s backing has fallen by 4 points, to 53%. At the same time, 59% of those interviewed want it to end quickly, up 6 points, as worries increase about the economic and social fallout.

Surveys show the violence has benefited far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, front-runner for April’s presidential election. She convened supporters in Orléans on Saturday for her National Rally party’s congress, while thousands of her opponents, including leftist and union leaders, held a protest march in the central French city.

An Ipsos-BVA-Cési École d’ingénieurs poll for Le Parisien published on Saturday showed that while Le Pen is still firmly in the lead, the far-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has also received a boost from the unrest and stands in second place, ahead of various centrist competitors. The survey of 1,500 adults was taken online on Oct. 21-22.

Fiscal fears

The unrest has increased fears about public finances. While France dodged a downgrade by Moody’s Ratings late Friday, it’s struggling to reduce the budget deficit ahead of the 2027 election.

A closely watched gauge of bond risk rose to levels last seen during the euro-area debt crisis: The spread between 10-year yields in France and Germany, the region’s safe asset, reached 178 basis points on Thursday, compared with just 85 basis points at the start of September.

Private sector economic activity also shrank this month, with the Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index compiled by S&P Global dropping to 48.4 in October from 51.1 last month. That’s under the 50 threshold separating expansion from contraction.

Hints at the impact continue to develop. On Saturday, the chief executive officer of Breitling said the Swiss luxury watch brand was bracing for a hit to holiday season sales as tourists stay away from Paris.

France isn’t the only European country dealing with popular unrest. Clashes broke out in Tirana on Saturday as protesters demanding Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation threw stones and set fires while police responded with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.

In Italy, police used tear gas in Turin after demonstrators threw paving stones and bottles, according to newswire Ansa. There were also confrontations with police in Rome and Bologna.

In Milan, where protests degenerated into looting last week, access to the central Piazza del Duomo was blocked off by authorities. Even so, 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Milan, Corriere della Sera reported.

Protests also took place in Belgium.

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(With assistance from Samy Adghirni.)

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