The government offered France a 0.6% pay rise. On the fifth Saturday of protests, marchers called it “crumbs”

For the fifth Saturday running, France marched. The interior ministry counted about 106,000 protesters across the country on 14 November, 24,000 of them in Paris. Student unions put the figure at 200,000.

Authorities said the day was largely calm, though tear gas was reported in Paris, Nantes, Bordeaux and Montpellier. In Lyon, where about 8,000 people marched according to local estimates, masked demonstrators lit fires and police charged. In Marseille about 3,500 people marched despite a protest ban, and a water cannon was reported.

Who is marching, and why?

It is an unusual coalition. The Yellow Vests, the movement that began in 2018 over fuel prices and brought two years of protests, have joined high school students, university students and education unions who have been blockading schools for more than a month.

Their demands run from wages and the cost of living to crowded classrooms and crumbling school buildings. “We’re asking to have teachers when we go to class,” said Marius Mesnil of the high school students’ union.

Police are now a cause in their own right. Lawyers for at least 18 people injured at recent protests have said they will sue the interior ministry, describing injuries to hands, feet and eyes. A bill going to a vote next week would give police and gendarmes extra legal protection when they use their firearms on duty. Supporters, including Marine Le Pen’s party, say officers should not be presumed guilty of excessive force. Unions call it a “license to kill”.

What has the government offered?

A 0.6% rise in the minimum wage, brought forward to try to calm the streets. Unions rejected it. Yellow Vest member Benjamin Ball said the government had offered “crumbs”.

Is the movement fading?

The Saturday numbers are falling: from 146,000 to 106,000 in a week, by the ministry’s count. But Saturdays are only part of it. A union-led strike on Thursday drew more than half a million people, and the school blockades continue on weekdays.

The first big protest of this wave, on 17 October, brought looting across France. Since then the government has put more police on the streets and tightened controls on transport and protest permits.

Why should anyone outside France care?

France is the European Union’s second-largest economy, and how President Emmanuel Macron’s government handles a protest movement that mixes students, unions and the Yellow Vests will be watched by every government facing cost-of-living anger. Australians travelling to France over the coming weeks should expect strike disruption, particularly on transport, and avoid protest areas.