SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
In France today, about 400,000 people came out in cities across the country to demonstrate. The movement began last month with students demanding better facilities. It's now morphed into a broader protest over the high cost of living and social inequality. In response, the French government put in place a massive security operation with more than 70,000 police. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Protesters of all ages and backgrounds coursed down a Paris boulevard - students, workers, parents, retirees, and yellow vests, the largely white working-class movement that bedeviled French president Emmanuel Macron in his first term. These left-wing demonstrators held placards calling to tax the rich and for Macron to resign. Dimitry Knoll explains why there is such anger.
DMITRY KNOLL: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "We hate Macron," he says, "because he's been leading these ultra-capitalist policies for 10 years that are just widening inequalities, and young people have less hope for the future." Knoll doesn't buy the government's line that France's public debt prevents it from doing more for its people. There's money, he says. It's just in the hands of the rich.
SANDRINE DELORIE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "We pay our taxes, yet everything is declining, and we're giving massive payouts to multinational companies," says Sandrine Delorie. Fellow protester Sarah Meloul says they all deplore the violence, but police aggression fueled it. And sometimes violence is necessary.
SARAH MELOUL: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "How did they take the bastille? With violence," she says. The student protests of May '68 succeeded because of violence. Meloul says, the government is finally listening.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: A different France gathered today 100 miles south of Paris in the town of Orleans, where the far right was holding its annual party Congress.
(CHEERING)
BEARDSLEY: Polls show far-right leader Marine Le Pen in the lead in next spring's presidential election. That's another reason it's so important to protest, says nurse Jenny Barthelemy.
JENNY BARTHELEMY: Well, now it's more dangerous because we've got the national front coming. There's two different Frances. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. But we're so divided now. I don't know if there's anything to do anymore.
BEARDSLEY: There were clashes between small groups of far-left activists and law enforcement in some cities, like Marseilles and Lyon. But with 70,000 police on the streets of France, the government largely avoided a repeat of last week's violence. But tensions are high across the country, and curfews for minors remain in place in many cities. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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