France's interior minister says 511 people arrested and a gendarme hurt by a Molotov cocktail after third Saturday of protests

As of 20:05 GMT on 31 October: France’s Interior Ministry said 511 people had been arrested nationwide by 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Saturday, up from 422 announced by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez earlier in the evening and 296 at 17:00 GMT, franceinfo reported. No overnight figures were available yet.

The ministry put turnout at 320,000 across France, including 70,000 in Paris. A youth and student union coalition said nearly 500,000 took part, including 200,000 in Paris. The Paris march ran from Porte de Bagnolet to Porte de Charenton.

At the end of the march, Paris police said “a hard core of several hundred rioters” attacked officers with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail, the Guardian reported. AFP reported that masked people prised up paving stones and threw them at police, who used tear gas and baton charges.

Nuñez said a gendarme was lightly injured by the Molotov cocktail and kept working. “It is an attempted murder,” he said. He said the marches “went well” but that there had been “an enormous amount of tension, an enormous amount of violence”. He said “casseurs” (vandals) had confronted police with “extraordinary violence” in cities including Paris, Toulouse, Rennes, Marseille and Nantes, trying to reach city centres.

Police used tear gas in Lyon and water cannon in Toulouse, the Guardian reported. Marseille’s prefecture said up to 10,000 people marched, and that projectiles were thrown at police after two hours without incident.

“The day is not over,” Nuñez said, citing calls on social media for gatherings at 20:00 local time. Police were blocking access to Place de la Bastille, franceinfo reported. A curfew applies from 22:00 GMT in the Place de la République and Châtelet-Les Halles areas.

Earlier: France allows Saturday’s protests only outside city centres and deploys 70,000 police.