Protesters clashed with police in France on Saturday as demonstrations over living costs and public services entered a fourth consecutive weekend and drew students, trade unions and members of the revived “Yellow Vest” movement onto the streets.

The country’s Interior Ministry counted 146,000 demonstrators nationwide, including 46,000 in Paris. A youth union alliance put attendance at 250,000 nationally and 75,000 in the capital. At least 360 people were arrested across the country, AFP reported, citing a ministry tally.

Police used tear gas against people throwing projectiles as the main Paris march ended at Place de la Nation, per AFP. Garbage cans were set alight as protesters and police clashed in several cities, according to Le Monde.

Police blocked a separate, banned Yellow Vest gathering at Place de la Concorde and arrested two movement leaders, Le Monde reported.

The Yellow Vests emerged in 2018 in opposition to fuel-tax increases, before broadening into a movement protesting high living costs and the policies of President Emmanuel Macron.

The turnout was lower than on the previous three weekends. It was also below union-led demonstrations on Nov. 5, when the Interior Ministry counted 575,000 people nationwide.

The protests began in late September with high-school students demanding better conditions, before university students and unions joined.

This weekend’s protests come after French lawmakers rejected the revenue section of the 2027 budget, as the government wrestles with addressing public anger while trying to rein in its finances.

The government’s original proposal now goes to the Senate, which is scheduled to begin debating it Nov. 20.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is due to meet labor and employer representatives Monday to discuss wages and purchasing power.

Mostly peaceful protests across France over a worsening cost-of-living crisis and growing inequality descended into violence for a second straight weekend.

France’s Interior Ministry said 410,000 people took part in protests in several major cities, including Paris.

After rioters set fire to the historic city hall in Limoges and looters smashed supermarkets and luxury boutiques in Lyon last weekend, French authorities greatly stepped up security ahead of Saturday’s protests.

In Paris on Saturday, riot police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse a group of around 500 hooded youths who hurled stones at officers, Reuters quoted a security official as saying.

In France’s second city, Marseille, youths dragged large metal sheets to block a street, set fire to rubbish bins, and hurled rocks and bottles at riot police. The confrontations continued after sunset, and police said looters raided two jewelry shops, according to a Reuters report.

Clashes also flared in Lyon, Bordeaux and Grenoble, while police fired volleys of tear gas at demonstrators in Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, Nantes and Nice, according to the agency.

However, the violence was still less intense than a week ago, when looters and vandals went on the rampage in a number of French cities.

The demonstrations began last month as a group of high school students in suburban Paris lamented poor school conditions, including teacher shortages and unsatisfactory facilities. The demonstrations have since grown and evolved into nationwide protests.

France’s economic and political woes have sharply raised the cost of government borrowing. The yield on its 10-year bond rose above 5% for the first time since 2002 this week, settling around 5.03% on Friday.

Some investors fear the country’s debt problems could spread to the rest of the euro zone.

The yield on France’s benchmark 10-year government bond briefly crossed the 5% threshold for the first time since 2002 on Wednesday, as the country grapples with multiple crises.

Mass civil unrest resulted in a swathe of violent protests and rioting over the weekend, amid broad public dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, the French government is struggling to pass a federal budget through a divided parliament as market pressure for significant fiscal consolidation mounts in response to a swelling national debt and wide deficit.

The yield on the 10-year OAT was last seen around 6 basis points higher at 4.9794%, after rising above 5% shortly before 11:30 a.m. in Paris (5:30 a.m. ET).

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Curfews contributed to a “calm” night across France, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Tuesday, even as public discontent remained high following the weekend’s mass protests, looting and violent scenes.

Certain areas of several French cities were under curfew overnight, including Place de la République and Les Halles in Paris, and parts of central Lyon. Lille and Nice were among the cities to impose curfews for minors.

The unrest comes at a particularly fragile moment for France, where public anger over living costs and deteriorating services is colliding with political instability and a mounting fiscal crisis that threatens to turn into a sovereign debt crisis as government borrowing costs rise to the highest level in decades.

The country faces a divided parliament with no majority and presidential elections in April 2027.

In a statement on Tuesday, Lecornu said local officials would impose new curfews where required.

Meanwhile, criticism is mounting over President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to embark on a three-day tour of the Middle East as France suffers its most severe riots in many years.

Riots followed weeks of demonstrations amid public anger over the country’s education system, the cost of living and other issues.

While hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully, pockets of violence erupted, shocking the country, as protesters smashed shopfronts and set Limoges Town Hall on fire.

Political commentator Christophe Barbier on radio station RTL said on Monday there was “no longer a pilot in the plane.” At the same time, newspaper La Dépêche du Midi wrote in a scathing editorial that Macron had “to see if the misery of a reviled president is less painful in the Persian Gulf sun” as France “sinks deeper into crisis.”

Macron said on Sunday he was looking to address high fuel prices and secure French energy supplies through the trip to Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, while strengthening defense and security cooperation.

French assets came under pressure on Monday after the weekend scenes, with bonds, stocks and the euro all selling off, amid growing skepticism about the country’s ability to bring down its deficit to a sustainable level.

Fierce debate is underway over the 2027 budget, with the government targeting an overall decline in the deficit to 5% of GDP from 5.4%.

Anger over the cost of living and pressure on public services has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto streets across several European countries, with grievances ranging from expensive housing to poor conditions in schools and universities.

France saw the largest demonstrations at the weekend, with more than 500,000 people marching. Most protested peacefully, but some looted and vandalized shops, set fire to city halls and attacked police officers.

Separate protests also took place in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Albania on Saturday and Sunday. Their immediate triggers differed, although high fuel and energy costs formed part of the backdrop in several countries. The wars in Iran and Ukraine have pushed diesel prices sharply higher across the continent.

There’s no one “single trigger” for the riots, Capital Economics’ Chief Europe Economist Andrew Kenningham told CNBC. The increase in energy costs may be playing a role, but the increase is smaller than in 2022, at the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, when there were no comparable violent protests, he added.

Nevertheless, the demonstrations pose a shared challenge for governments: how to improve living conditions and maintain public services while supporting households and keeping strained public finances in check.

In Spain, housing protests began in September after an 87-year-old woman, Maricarmen Abascal, was evicted following a 230% rent increase by an investment fund. She died a fortnight later.

Thousands of protesters also took to the streets in Portugal on Saturday to demonstrate against soaring housing costs and the cost of living.

“People obviously are protesting on the cost of living with diesel and fuel prices, but mainly on housing costs, which have been increasing substantially all over Europe, but also particularly in Portugal,” Miranda Sarmento, Portugal’s minister of state and finance, said Monday.

In Albania, protesters were angry about poor university conditions and high tuition fees, and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama. Some threw Molotov cocktails and other objects at the police and set fire to cars and litter bins.

In Italy, a march in central Milan on Saturday over living costs also ended violently, with rioters attacking the police with stones and paving blocks and setting fire to barricades.

“The underlying problem is that politicians are not able to offer hope of a better life for many Europeans because the economy is growing only slowly and…

Social unrest, political instability and mounting national debt weighed on French assets on Monday, with government bonds and Paris-listed stocks under pressure.

The euro was last seen down 0.28% against the U.S. dollar, and was 0.24% lower against the British pound.

The French 10-year bond yield jumped more than 10 basis points, remaining near its highest level in decades despite some recent easing. Higher yields represent higher borrowing costs for the government in the debt market. The country’s 2-year and 30-year yields were up 6 basis points and 8 basis points, respectively.

Stocks are also feeling the heat, with the CAC 40 index down 1.34% in morning deals on Monday. The market has significantly underperformed its European peers in recent years — despite only around 15% of its revenues being generated domestically — with banks under particular pressure.

The French stock market is historically sensitive to any widening in the so-called “OAT-Bund spread”, the extra bond yield France pays over Germany, which has hit the highest level since the European Sovereign Debt Crisis of the early 2010s. French yields now also surpass those of Italy or Greece, implying higher risk.

Widening bond spreads raise concerns about the cost for companies to raise capital and heighten fears of higher taxes and tighter regulation. The French stock market has also struggled due to the dominance of its luxury firms, which are suffering from a downturn in high-end Chinese consumer spending.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched over the weekend in protest over political paralysis, the cost of living and the state of public services, including schools and healthcare.

Mass gatherings in cities from Paris to Lyon and Marseille spilled into dramatic scenes of buildings and cars set on fire, clashes with police and more than 2,000 arrests.

“If you’re an international investor thinking about whether you want to invest in French bonds, it’s not helpful,” Mike Bell, head of market strategy at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.

“It looks like either the bond markets riot, or the people riot, or both,” Bell said.

Overseas investors hold a growing share of French debt, rising from around 48% at the start of 2022 to nearly 60% at the start of 2026, potentially meaning higher volatility in the bond market in a risk-off environment.

“What’s needed in France is to get the fiscal position in order, they need to raise the retirement age — you can’t retire at 62 if the average person’s living to 84 — but if this is going on even before they start talking about that, then imagine what would happen on the streets of France if you tried to raise the retirement age to… I mean here in the U.K. it’s 68,” Bell added.

“It doesn’t make the country look that governable against a time when they need to be putting…

Protests in France against rising living costs and declining public services turned violent over the weekend, with more than 500,000 people taking to the streets.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched through various cities and protested peacefully but others set fire to the city hall in Limoges, gutting the 19th-century building.

Lyon’s city tourist office was also set ablaze, supermarkets were looted and there were attacks on police officers and vehicles and luxury boutiques, in what was described as the country’s worst unrest in years.

Officers used tear gas to restrain the crowds. One protester died of a heart attack, and another lost a hand.

“Those who looted will have to pay back for the damage, and those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday.

He blamed “unrestrained violence” on “insurrectionist elements from radical far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals.”

The demonstrations began last month as high school students across Paris lamented poor school conditions, including teacher shortages and unsatisfactory facilities. The demonstrations evolved into a nationwide protest.

France is “putting the house in order” and is capable of slashing its burdensome budget deficit, despite the political turmoil facing the country, the head of the country’s central bank insists.

The country is currently subject to the EU’s excessive deficit procedure, with the bloc recommending Paris bring its national deficit closer to 3% of GDP, compared to 5.1% as of last year.

Market concerns about political instability hampering efforts to bring the deficit under control have weighed on French bond markets this year, exacerbating pressures felt globally from the U.S.-Iran war and consequential inflation fears.

Speaking to CNBC’s JP Ong on the sidelines of the IMF Meetings in Bangkok, Banque de France Governor Emmanuel Moulin said that he did not believe rising government borrowing costs in recent months were linked to a change in the French fiscal position.

“It’s really about political uncertainty and the question whether the budget will be adopted with [delivering] a 5% deficit, which is the objective of the government,” he said. “And I think to reassure markets, it is important that there is a budget that is voted and a budget that sticks to the 5% deficit.”

He noted that, in the past, French governments had successfully consolidated public finances and drastically cut their deficits. But he said it was more difficult to deliver the necessary changes today, because the cost of servicing France’s national debt was so high.

“It’s about 10 billion [euros] per year more, so we need to take this into account in the consolidation,” Moulin said. “But I think it is possible to get back to a 3% deficit in 2029, which is the objective of the government.”

Asked whether the French government could deliver on that objective without enforcing a period of austerity, Moulin said Thursday that he didn’t think such a policy mix was in the cards.

“I would challenge the fact that this is austerity. This is not austerity. It is just putting the house in order,” he said.

Speaking to CNBC at the IMF Meetings last week, the institution’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said her message to France was to “get your house in order.”

Yields on French government bonds, known as OATs, have surged to multi-decade highs this year amid rising concerns about France’s fiscal outlook, sparking concerns about a possible sovereign debt crisis that could impact the broader euro zone.

But Moulin told CNBC Thursday that he was “confident about financial stability in France and in Europe,” pointing to solid banking, insurance and financial sectors that were “well capitalized with ample liquidity.”

“It’s a global phenomenon that interest rates are increasing,” he said. “It calls for stricter fiscal consolidation in a number of countries, be it the U.S., be it France, be it some other European countries, also Japan. This is a global phenomenon. So I don’t think we should be too afraid of a risk of contagion.”

He added…