“The police started moving towards everyone, telling them to get down and back off. They were just taking people down, you know, beating protesters,” one demonstrator bleeding from a baton blow to his face, who gave his first name as David, told AFP.
Paris’s police said a water cannon was also used, and blamed “500 hooligans who are confronting law enforcement”.
In the western city of Nantes, thousands of protesters broke through police lines to reach the city centre, an AFP journalist there witnessed.
Officers had used tear gas and a water cannon to try and stop them, some of whom threw projectiles and aimed fireworks in their direction.
In Lyon, police used tear gas to disperse around 1,000 people gathered in the south of the city.
“If they prohibit protests then that means we are heading more and more towards a regime that is fascist, that is dictatorial,” said one 20-year-old protester there, who gave only his first name, Silem.
In Nice, a police water cannon pushed back protesters.
The Yellow Vests, who staged disruptive protests against Macron eight years ago, called for more demonstrations on Oct 31 for “the freedom to protest”.
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