French protest and 100s arrested

People have also begun marching in the port city of Marseille, France’s second-most populous city. Thousands had gathered for the procession down the Canabière main street.

In Lyon, crowds have set off from Place Jean-Macé, chanting slogans and singing, flanked by rows of police officers. Crowds are also marching in Toulouse and Lille.

Meanwhile protest restrictions remain in place in other cities, where last-minute legal appeals have failed.

In Bordeaux, demonstrators have shown up at the Place de la Bourse despite a city-wide ban and tram cancellations.

“Whether the protest is banned or not, we will support the high school students’ movement and we won’t abandon them. We are parents, we were young once, and we are also workers,” said Brigitte Couderc, general secretary of the CGT-Commerce and Services union in the Gironde region told Le Monde.

In Nice, police said they had ordered the dispersal of a crowd of several hundred people who had gathered at Place Masséna despite all gatherings being banned.

France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, earlier said that there was a turnout of about 35,000 people in marches across the country, compared with 60,000 last Saturday. He said authorities had counted 136 public street actions, down from 264 the previous weekend.