Flying Paving Stones, Police on Fire... 565 Arrested

[Anchor]

Protests in France demanding solutions to poor educational environments and economic hardship are now in their second month. This weekend, even Molotov cocktails appeared. In neighboring Germany, protests have also begun in earnest, leading to looting of shops in various places.

Reporter Kwon Yeongin has the story.

[Reporter]

Fire breaks out on the leg of a police officer deployed to suppress the protests.

Even a bystander participant rushes in to put out the flames with bare hands.

Clashes broke out across France on Saturday, local time, during protests demanding improvements to the educational environment and solutions to economic hardship.

The rally that began in the outskirts of Paris started peacefully, but

[Josephine / Protester: The government is not responding to our demands. They are implementing measures to buy time. Ultimately, they are failing to properly address our demands.]

The atmosphere changed abruptly when some radical protesters waiting at the end of the march joined in.

When protesters refused orders to disperse, police attempted forced dispersal by firing tear gas like this.

Radical protesters smashed and hurled paving stones and curbs, and for the first time in these protests, Molotov cocktails appeared.

One police officer suffered second-degree burns, and 565 protesters were arrested at the scene across France yesterday (the 31st).

As clashes between police and protesters erupted fiercely here, stones and tear gas canisters are scattered around as you can see, and trash cans are burning.

In downtown areas where nighttime protests are banned, sporadic disturbances continued taking advantage of Halloween.

French police stated that 320,000 people participated in the protests nationwide, a smaller scale than the weekend rallies over the past two weeks which drew more than 400,000 people.

In Germany as well, youth protests demanding opposition to conscription took place nationwide for the first time since the French protest situation.

Clashes broke out in various places, and some shops suffered looting damage in Frankfurt.

As French students whose two-week autumn break has ended have warned of school blockade protests again this Tuesday, protest situations across Europe, including in Spain and Italy, show little sign of subsiding.

(Camera reporting: Kim Si-nae, Video editing: Won Hyung-hee)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.