The interior minister announced nearly 200 arrests in the first hours of the planned day of nationwide protests. PIC/ AFP
Although falling short of its self-declared intention to 'Block Everything,' the protest movement that started online and gathered steam 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 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
The unrest also spread to rail transport, with state-owned SNCF reporting disruptions on TER regional and Intercites services due to "two malicious acts" overnight
Damage to cables between Marmande and Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne region disrupted services between Bordeaux and Toulouse, while another incident near Toulouse also interrupted traffic. High-speed TGV trains remained unaffected
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