This is the ultra-left, and it comes in all colours: A night with the Paris protesters

November 8, 2026 — 4:45pmParis: The young man in the mask stands in front of the fire and raises his arms in a show of strength.The burning rubbish on the street behind him, spilled from a bin and set alight, makes the perfect backdrop for his moment of defiance.Photographers cluster around him to capture the theatrical pose. But it is over in minutes when the young man, with his red mask and bull’s horns, runs back to the crowd to clash with the police.This is another Saturday night in Paris during a season of violent protest that began with student rallies and escalated into riots and looting.I am in the Place de la Nation, east of the city centre, after a protest over school conditions and the cost of living brought an estimated 46,000 people onto the streets of the capital.The march, approved by authorities and mostly peaceful, was supposed to finish quietly at this public space. But everyone knew it would not. As the sun set, the masked activists at the front of the crowd prepared to confront the police.A protester in Paris on the night of November 7. David CroweThis turns the protest into a small riot. The activists wield fireworks against police and start fires along Boulevard Voltaire. The police respond with repeated warnings over a loudspeaker telling people to leave the area.As at earlier protests over the past few weeks, the most determined agitators wear a uniform that sets them apart: black balaclavas, black hoodies and black pants. Some have ski masks to protect them from tear gas.The antagonism between protesters and police is now a feature of these events. The school students who began the rallies blame the police for heavy-handed tactics such as firing stun grenades that have injured protesters.The most common rallying cry from the crowd here is “ACAB” – pronounced as a word and short for “all cops are bastards”. One man in a mask with a thundering voice urges the crowd on with the chant.Police officers clash with demonstrators at Place de la Nation in Paris.Getty ImagesThe leaders of these riots are known to use social messaging apps to coordinate their moves. And they are known for violence. The French media has taken to calling them the “black bloc” and describes them as a mix of anarchists and socialists. They are, in French, the ultra-gauche – the ultra-left.French students have told this masthead they reject those who smash property at the protests – the casseurs who are called “breakers” in English. The violence and looting in recent weeks has shocked many, but it has not deterred the student groups and union organisers from holding further marches.The French parliament is debating ways to punish those who go too far. It has a casseurs-payeurs bill – which means “breakers pay” – that would fine people up to €10,000 to recover the cost of their damage.Identifying the rioters, however, is challenging when very few faces can be fully seen behind the masks. There are enough visible to know that the rioters have the faces of modern France: some white, some black.Protesters turn to run from tear gas fired by police in Paris on November 7. David CrowePeople from migrant backgrounds have been part of the protests, and I have seen them confronting police or looting shops, but the crowd at the Place de la Nation is not a race-based uprising.While US President Donald Trump blamed “migrants, jihadists and communists” for the protests, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said France was suffering an “invasion of extremist Islam”, that is not an accurate way to describe the crowd on Saturday night.The unifying theme at this protest is a political ideology, not an ethnicity. The placards condemn fascism, call for French President Emmanuel Macron to go to prison and mock right-wing politician Marine Le Pen, who leads the opinion polls in the race for next year’s presidential election.This is the ultra-left, and it comes in all colours.Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to show their anger and maintain pressure on the government.Getty ImagesMedics stand by after clashes between police officers and demonstrators.Getty ImagesEarlier, at the Place de la Concorde, a separate group sought to defy government decisions to ban all protests except for that at the Place de la Nation. When the “yellow vest” movement tried to gather, police arrested their leaders, Benjamin Ball and Solene Azelma Sigaux.The same approach steadily brings the crowd under control at the Place de la Nation. Hundreds of activists taunt the police, and some aim fireworks at them, but the crowd scatters when the police fire stun grenades and tear gas.The police charge down Boulevard Voltaire, shoving some of the protesters and moving the crowd back. With some of the streets blocked, the crowd is broken up. The fires on the street are extinguished. As protesters drift away, the police outnumber those who remain – and are able to assert their control over the square.There is no looting that I can see. Some stores still show the signs of being smashed in the riots over recent weeks. Many shops around the Place de la Republique, the epicentre of the October 17 riot, are still boarded up. Tonight, however, the protesters disperse from the Place de la Nation.“The show’s over early,” says a journalist behind me.The protest is, after all, a performance. The young man in the bull’s mask wanted his theatrical moment, and he found it next to a burning bin in the street.But is the show achieving anything? The government is promising to listen to the students about school quality, and possibly offer some concessions to unions. There is nothing for the hardened activists, however, except an adrenaline rush.The presidential candidate who is loudly backing the protests, far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is hardly surging ahead in the polls. The latest survey, published in Le Parisien last Tuesday, said his support ranged from 17.5 to 18 per cent.Le Pen leads with 35 to 37 per cent of the vote in the first round. Every survey indicates she would trounce Mélenchon in the second round.Not all performances pay off.Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.From our partners