‘It’s utter chaos': Protests in France evolve into anger over broader economy

Protesters are facing off with police in Paris today. What started in September with widespread anger among students over learning conditions in schools is widening to broader protests over economic and social issues. We're hearing that hundreds of arrests have been made so far this morning. Police are using tear gas and batons to try to drive protesters back. High school and university students are leading a march in the centre of the French capital. CBC's Chris Brown is in Paris with the latest. Well, this is a scene of chaos at the Place de la Republique in Paris. There's tear gas everywhere, canisters, the sky is thick with not just the smoke from the crowd dispersal smoke, but also because so much has been set on fire. A car down there, a kiosk over there. You hear the grenades being thrown by the police in order to push protesters back. There were at one point thousands of protesters out there, I would say, and now there's far fewer. They've been dispersed. Who started this? What the cause was? What they were after? What police were trying to accomplish? It's impossible to know because this kicked off very quickly, almost two hours before what was supposed to be a march through Paris. This was all started, initiated by high school students about three weeks ago, who had blocked their schools, demanding that the Macron government put more money into education. Well, today, there was something what one analyst told me was convergence. You have many groups out there now, trade unionists, for example, the Gilets Jaunes. You can see some of the yellow vests out there. Now this is a group that was started pushing back against high cost of living crisis. So everything has come together but it's utter chaos and right there you can see it's getting even worse. Police using their water cannon to try to shut this thing down but there's still hours and hours to go on this and the scene as I say is utter chaos. Chris Brown, CBC News in Paris.