About 17,000 people protested on July 14 against plans to extend the use of the French health pass.
Several French media sources quoted police estimates of 19,000 for the protests, which turned into a disaster in some French cities.
President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed the plans on July 12.
He said the pass sanitaire will soon be required to access a wide range of public spaces. This includes restaurants, shopping centres, cinemas and long-distance transport.
Having the pass means the bearer has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and has a negative test result taken within 48 hours.
Or else he has had the virus beforehand and is considered immune.
It aims to encourage more people to get vaccinated, as the declaration included the fact that Covid tests for leisure and travel reasons would soon no longer be free.
The biggest protests were in Paris, Lyon and Toulouse.
In Paris, the préfecture de police said that protests “did not respect the approved route, projectiles were thrown [and] bins set on fire”.
In a tweet, it encouraged protestors to go to the Place de la République, the projected arrival point.
In Lyon, protestors were cleared from rue de la République with tear gas.
In Annecy, around 200 protestors broke a gate at the prefecture and spent an hour in the gardens inside, before rejoining the main protest.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described the break-in as “against the values of the Republic”. The incident is being investigated.
Throughout France, protestors carried signs with slogans such as “My body, my choice, my life” and “Yes to life, no to the health pass”.
Extending use of the health pass comes as the president also announced that PCR and rapid antigen tests would no longer be free for people without a prescription from autumn.
This means that getting vaccinated would become the only free way to continue accessing a wide range of public spaces with a health pass.
The president also announced that vaccination would become mandatory for healthcare workers in France.
Some protesters said the rules meant France was becoming a dictatorship, however, on Twitter Europe Minister Clément Beaune said it was a misuse of the meaning of the word and that he wished there were “a lot of dictatorships like France”.
