Police said about 70,000 people demonstrated in Paris alone. France's interior ministry said about 320,000 people rallied nationwide.

Clashes broke out between security forces and protesters in Paris, Lyon and other French cities late on Saturday, following a largely peaceful day of nationwide demonstrations, French media reported.

BEDLAM swept across Europe on Halloween as hundreds of thousands of masked rioters clashed with police on a night of continent-wide chaos. Thugs firebombed cops as protests spiralled out of

Authorities said masked groups on Saturday set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities.

The interior ministry estimated that 320,000 people had demonstrated nationwide, a smaller number than the previous two Saturdays. The police and protesters clashed in Paris and other cities.

A visual tour of the Place de la République, a site of protests and political conflict in Paris for the past 150 years.

A movement sparked by grievances with France's education system threatens to turn into a bonfire of collective rage against what young people see as an increasingly dismal future

More than 320,000 people demonstrated across France on Oct. 31 over rising living costs and police violence. Police said protests in Paris became chaotic on Halloween, and authorities arrested 511 people by 8 p.

The government began talks with unions and student representatives to defuse the crisis, but ​protest leaders say the measures ​it has proposed are inadequate.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrate, though numbers down from previous weeks; 560 arrested nationwide; Germany sees violent protests; rallies held in Portugal and the Netherlands