Nearly half a million people demonstrated across France on Saturday, including 200,000 in Paris, said a coalition of youth organisations and unions representing high school and university students.
The authorities put the nationwide turnout at 320,000, including 70,000 in the French capital. A week ago officials counted 410,000 protesters across France, including 110,000 in Paris.
Turnout at French protests against the cost of living stood at 320,000 nationwide, the interior ministry said on Saturday, lower than the 410,000 seen the previous Saturday and 550,000 on October 17, when riots erupted across the country.
Tension flared at the end of the marches in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other French cities, with tear gas being fired at some people on the sidelines of the demonstrations.
Clashes erupted between police and some demonstrators in Paris on Saturday as the protest march reached its final destination, with tear gas filling the streets, AFP journalists saw.
Dozens of masked people dressed in black used hammers to pry up paving stones and hurl them at police.
At least one incendiary device was also thrown at security forces. Police responded with tear gas and several baton charges.
“A hard core of several hundred rioters” at the rear of the march was attacking police with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail, the Paris police prefecture said. Officers were “manoeuvering to restore public order”, it added.
Authorities said the dispersal of the demonstration was otherwise proceeding without difficulty.
