Violent clashes erupted across France Saturday evening, with rioters throwing what appeared to be Molotov cocktails at Paris police which injured several officers – while in Lyon US and Israeli flags were set on fire.
Page B49From§Eachthe evening edition — 31 October 2026
France's third weekend: 320,000 in the streets, Molotovs thrown, flags burning, on schedule.
As it ran on the front
The accurate name for what French schoolchildren are doing died on 20 October, at a Trump rally, at the age of roughly seven weeks. It is survived by a third weekend of marches, by an interior minister's warning, and by an American election three days away. It was preceded in death by the arrest count, which depends on who is doing the counting and on which day.
It was born in September, at a single school in the economically deprived suburbs of Paris, over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and buildings with rats and falling debris. By mid-October the complaint had spread to 140 cities, and a Common Dreams dispatch quoted organizers saying the government was trembling. The renaming began soon after: on 20 October the president told a rally the unrest was the work of migrants and communists. The protest did not change. The word for it did.…
…(cont) By 24 October French police were logging nearly 800 demonstrations and Fox News put the arrest total at 135, with potential weapons found on protesters. Two days later CBS News put the number above 1,000. The recast of schoolkids as migrants and communists remains, by the numbers, hogwash: the crowds did not shrink to match the new name. They grew into a third weekend.
That weekend arrived Saturday as Halloween. Police counted 70,000 in Paris; the interior ministry counted 320,000 nationwide. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had warned of a "very high risk" of disorder after dark, and the disorder arrived on schedule: rioters threw what appeared to be Molotov cocktails at Paris police, injuring several officers, and in Lyon marchers burned American and Israeli flags. In Portland, on a New Year's Eve five years ago, police declared a protest a riot, fired rubber bullets, and the arrest count went unstated. Paris in 2026 has the same trouble: the number depends on the week you ask.
Nuñez's warning arrived exactly when it said it would, which is more than can be said for the school repairs that started this shit in September.
In lieu of flowers, read past the flag that burned to the classroom roof that is still falling in.
“They spent six weeks calling French schoolkids migrants and communists, and the schoolkids answered by tripling the crowd. That's not a messaging problem, that's the math not working: the minister said "very high risk" and the country delivered it right on time, like he placed the order himself. Three days before our own election, this is the story they want you watching instead of the one about who fixes a leaking classroom roof.”
“This is clearly outside agitation, the President's been saying that for weeks, migrants and communists, which, I should check, those aren't usually the same agitators — anyway. Three hundred twenty thousand people don't show up over a few broken desks and some rats, that's not a school funding crisis, that's organized. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Students marching over classroom rats enter weekend three; now showing at American rallies, three days before the vote. By Mort · the evening edition, 31 October 2026
- France deploys 70,000 police to guard a headcount two papers still cannot agree on. By Mort · the evening edition, 25 October 2026
- Same Saturday, Europe's protests get three different tallies — and the mob still makes the New York Post's deadline. By Mort · the morning edition, 25 October 2026
- Students protesting rats and falling debris in their schools became footage at Trump's midterm rallies; one Saturday's arrest count was filed at 135, then nearly 1,000. By Mort · the evening edition, 25 October 2026
The receipts
Thousands of young protesters take to the streets of France for a third weekend.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned of a "very high risk" of disorder, especially after dark on Halloween, as some 320,000 people nationwide took to the streets.
Police said about 70,000 people demonstrated in Paris alone. France's interior ministry said about 320,000 people rallied nationwide.
· On December 31 and into the early hours of January 1, protesters and police clashed in a New Year's Eve protest which police declared a riot shortly before midnight, alleging the demonstrators' use of from the morgue, 1 Jan 2021
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.