Published on: 01/05/2026 - 09:07 Modified on: 01/05/2026 - 20:07

Some 158,000 people demonstrated across France on Friday in defense of the May 1 public holiday and for wage increases, including 24,000 in Paris, according to the Interior Ministry. The CGT, for its part, counted more than 300,000 demonstrators, including around 100,000 in the capital. Here is the flow of the day.

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May 1 work: LFI requests legal action against Lecornu

La France insoumise has requested a referral to the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) against Sébastien Lecornu, whom it accuses of "attempting to thwart the execution of the law" after he assured a baker fined for having opened on May 1st that a solution would be found.

Inspections of florists and bakers opened on Friday were carried out by the Labor Inspectorate, but "no incident has been reported to us", Sébastien Lecornu assured the press on Friday afternoon, without specifying the number.

“We never said there would be no control.” “Including because there are conditions, in particular the voluntary participation of the employee, and that is not negotiable,” added the Prime Minister.

“An attempt to thwart the execution of the law”, for LFI, whose deputies referred the matter to the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, who acts as prosecutor for the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the only jurisdiction authorized to judge members of the government for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.

The gatherings took place “peacefully”, welcomes Laurent Nuñez

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised the work of the police in a post on X, specifying that the gatherings took place "for the most part peacefully".

May 1: 158,000 demonstrators in France, including 24,000 in Paris, according to the police

Some 158,000 people took part in union demonstrations in France, including 24,000 in Paris, according to figures provided by the Interior Ministry.

Last year, there were 157,000, including 32,000 demonstrators in the capital according to the authorities, while the CGT reported just under 300,000 people including some 100,000 in Paris.

More than 300,000 demonstrators in France, around 100,000 in Paris, according to the CGT

More than 300,000 people demonstrated across France on Friday in defense of the May 1 public holiday and for wage increases, including around 100,000 in Paris, according to a CGT count.

May 1: checks in businesses took place but “no incident was reported”, says Lecornu

Checks were carried out on Friday in local businesses open for May 1, Labor Day, but “no incident has come to our attention,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told several journalists, including AFP.

“Controls are normal. Including because there are conditions, notably the voluntary participation of the employee, and that is not negotiable,” said the head of government upon returning from a trip to Haute-Loire, during which he visited a florist and a bakery. He could not specify at this stage the number of these checks.

In Cuba, a May 1 march to “defend the homeland” against the United States

Cuba organized a large-scale May Day parade on Friday in front of the United States embassy in Havana, to "defend the homeland" and denounce its neighbor's threats of military aggression in a climate of high tension with Washington.

In the front row was the revolutionary leader Raul Castro, 94, alongside Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel who had called on X for Cubans to mobilize "against the genocidal blockade and the gross imperial threats" of the United States against the communist island.

“Faced with the immensity of the restrictions that seek to suffocate us and make us capitulate to irrational threats of war and death, this May 1 confirms that we (...) resist!”, launched from the podium the leader of the Cuban workers' union, Osnay Miguel Colina.

(Protesters march along the Havana waterfront, May 1, 2026. Credit: Adalberto Roque, AFP)

Olivier Faure (PS) floured in Amiens, receives the support of PS elected officials

Several elected officials from the Socialist Party gave their support on Friday to their first secretary Olivier Faure, who was the subject of a throwing of flour and hostile slogans, according to the local press, during the May 1 parade in Amiens.

“These methods are unacceptable and harm the fight of the entire left and workers on this May 1 which brings us together,” wrote on X the leader of the socialist deputies Boris Vallaud, while the mayor of Paris Emmanuel Grégoire condemned the incident in similar terms.

Local media published images of the socialist leader, his jacket stained with flour. According to Courrier Picard and Ici Picardie, Olivier Faure was also called a "social traitor" by certain demonstrators who also shouted "everyone hates the PS".

In Türkiye, a well-attended May 1st, at least 550 arrests

Thousands of protesters joined Turkey's May Day celebrations on Friday, despite heavy police deployments in the capital Ankara and locked-down Istanbul, where at least 550 people were arrested.

According to the ÇHD Lawyers Association which was deployed on the ground and updates its figures which have continued to grow over the hours, at 4 p.m. local time (1 p.m. GMT), "the number of people in police custody or whose relatives suspect that they are and of whom we have no news amounted to at least 550" in the economic capital of Turkey, where the police used tear gas from vehicles riot police, in the middle of the crowd, noted AFP journalists.

The authorities, who did not communicate on the arrests, wanted to block the demonstrators to prevent them from reaching Taksim Square, the center of Istanbul protests, closed to gatherings since 2013 and a wave of anti-government demonstrations.

In pictures - the procession parades in Paris

(A man disguised as Jesus Christ holds a fake gas pump on which we can read "We're bleeding you dry!" during a rally organized in Paris on May 1, 2026. Credit: Alain Jocard, AFP)

(A man holds a sign reading "Don't touch May 1st" during a rally organized in Paris on May 1, 2026. Credit: Julie Sebadelha, AFP)

(A man disguised as a sans-culotte, symbol of the worker radicalism of the French Revolution, brandishes a pike topped with a photo of American President Donald Trump during a rally organized in Paris on May 1, 2026. Credit: Alain Jocard, AFP)

3,400 demonstrators in Marseille without incident, 4,000 in Nantes where some tensions marred the procession

The participation figures for the various events are starting to fall. Nearly 3,400 demonstrators marched through the streets of Marseille without incident, according to the Bouches-du-Rhône prefecture. 4,000 demonstrators marched in Nantes where some tensions marred the parade.

Marine Le Pen speaks in Mâcon

From Mâcon where she is holding her May 1 meeting, Marine Le Pen lamented that the French must today "work more to keep more", criticizing taxes deemed too heavy. “Everyone must be able to work and live from it (...) work is not paid enough. We must restore the nobility of the value of work.”

“We are the defenders of economic freedom (...) with us, there will be neither complacency nor laissez-faire.”

Gabriel Attal defends himself after the announcement of first fines from craftsmen for open businesses

It’s a day of struggle,” declares Jean-Luc Mélenchon

“Prices are soaring, incomes are decreasing,” declared the founder of La France insoumise, calling for “social emergency laws” to “harmonize wages with price increases (...) immediately and for the duration of the crisis.”

In pictures - the May 1 demonstrations in France

(Protesters march during a rally to mark May 1 (Labor Day), which marks International Workers' Day, in Amiens, northern France, May 1, 2026. Credit: François Lo Presti/AFP)

(Protesters hold up a sign reading “Money for health, school and social – Not for war” during a rally organized on May 1, 2026 in Bordeaux. Credit: Christophe Archambault, AFP)

(This photograph shows "A sign reads 'Hands off May 1. For true equality at work and in life', during a rally on May 1, 2026, in Marseille. Credit: Miguel Medina, AFP)

Türkiye: nearly 400 arrests counted by lawyers on the sidelines of May 1

At least 370 people were arrested on the sidelines of May Day celebrations on Friday in Istanbul, reported an association of lawyers deployed on the ground.

“At 2 p.m. (11 a.m. GMT, editor’s note), according to our information, the number of people in police custody stood at 370,” the rights defense association CHD said on “X”.

Work on May 1: the “government cacophony has given free rein to employer delinquency”, according to Sophie Binet

“It is not the theft of May 1st that we must put on the agenda of Parliament. It is a big plan for increasing wages,” called Sophie Binet, of the CGT, while the government wants to modify the law to allow artisan bakers and florists to have their employees work on that day, which many of them already do.

Live from the International Space Station

French astronaut Sophie Adenot has just shared a message on social networks to mark May 1st. It's "not a public holiday aboard the Station, but it's a good time to share with you a simple message: take care of yourself, and take care of our planet," she wrote.

Gabriel Attal appears in a bakery in Vanves

The likely presidential candidate Gabriel Attal went to a bakery in his constituency in Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine) on Friday. He said he hoped that there would be no “verbalization” for the bakers and florists who work on May 1st.

“It would be a scandal if there were fines issued by labor inspectors today on bakers and florists, I hope that collective intelligence will prevail,” the leader of the presidential Renaissance party told the press after a visit to this bakery, “Les Toqués du pain”, during which he briefly went behind the counter and cashed out a customer.

Gabriel Attal, secretary general of the French centrist Renaissance party, in a bakery on the occasion of International Workers' Day in Vanves, a Paris suburb, on May 1, 2026.

On the occasion of May 1, a highly symbolic day for workers and a public holiday in many countries, demonstrations were organized around the world. The rising cost of living linked to the conflict in the Middle East is expected to be one of the central themes of the parades.

In France, May 1, a compulsory holiday for employees, has been the subject of heated debates in recent weeks around the possibility of working on it, particularly in food stores, florists and in cultural establishments.

With AFP, Reuters and AP

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