France : Police Arrest Dozens in ‘Block Everything’ Protests, Bus Set On Fire In Western City Of Rennes

10th September 2025 at 3:09 PM

1 minute read

Paris : Protesters blocked roads, set blazes and were met with volleys of police tear gas on Wednesday in Paris and elsewhere in France. The interior minister announced nearly 200 arrests in the first hours of the planned day of nationwide demonstrations.

Although falling short of its self-declared intention to “Block Everything,” the protest movement that started online over the summer caused widespread hot spots of disruption, defying an exceptional deployment of 80,000 police who broke up barricades and swiftly made arrests.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said that a bus was set on fire in the western city of Rennes and that damage to a power line blocked trains on a line in the southwest. He alleged that protesters were attempting to create “a climate of insurrection.”

On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron appointed his fifth prime minister in less than two years, choosing a close ally, Sebastien Lecornu, which outraged left-wing politicians. In Paris, firefighters removed burnt objects from a barricade set up by students to block traffic near a high school. Paris police said 132 people had been arrested in the demonstrations there so far.

“It’s the same shit, it’s the same, it’s Macron who’s the problem, not the ministers,” Fred, a representative for the RATP public transport branch of the CGT union said at a protest in Paris. “The ministers, it’s a problem, but it’s more Macron and his way of working, which means he has to go.”

The “Block Everything” movement – a broad expression of discontent with no centralised leadership and an ad hoc organisation by social media – sprung up online in May among right-wing groups, researchers and officials said, but has since been taken over by the left and far-left. Protesters blocked a highway with burning tires and bins. Police used teargas to disperse people trying to occupy a roundabout in the same city.