Paris: Protesters blocked roads, lit blazes and were met with volleys of tear gas on Wednesday in Paris and elsewhere in France to “Block Everything” in a show of anger against President Emmanuel Macron, the political establishment and planned budget cuts.

The government’s interior ministry announced 250 arrests in the first hours of what was a planned day of nationwide demonstrations. The protest movement that started online 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 afire in the western city of Rennes. In the southwest, fire damage to electrical cables stopped train services on one line and disrupted traffic on another, government transport authorities said.

Groups of protesters repeatedly tried to block Paris’ beltway during the mo­rning rush hour and were dispersed by police and tear gas. Elsewhere in the capital, protesters piled up trash cans and hurled objects at police offi­cers. Paris police reported 159 arrests through the morning. 

Around 100 others were taken into police custody elsewhere in France, as per the interior ministry count. 

Road blockades, traffic slowdowns and other protests were widely spread — from the southern port city of Marseille to Lille and Caen in the north, and Nantes and Rennes in the west to Grenoble and Lyon in the southeast. –Agencies