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A nationwide wave of antigovernment protests swept across France, filling streets with smoke, burning barricades and tear gas as demonstrators rallied against budget cuts and political instability.

The “Block Everything” campaign created a formidable test for President Emmanuel Macron and transformed Sebastien Lecornu’s first day as prime minister into an immediate crisis.

While the movement did not achieve its goal of total national disruption on Wednesday, it successfully paralysed significant portions of daily life and ignited hundreds of flashpoints throughout the country.

Despite deploying 80,000 police officers who dismantled barricades and arrested hundreds, disturbances multiplied across France. Protesters torched a bus in Rennes, while severed electric cables in the southwest halted train service and created traffic chaos.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau reported nearly 200,000 demonstrators nationwide by evening, though the CGT union claimed closer to 250,000 participants.

His ministry documented more than 450 arrests, hundreds in custody, more than a dozen injured officers, and upwards of 800 protest actions ranging from rallies to street fires. Retailleau declared the day “a defeat for those who wanted to block the country”, yet the government’s own statistics suggested otherwise.

The “Bloquons Tout” protests, while not matching the scale of France’s 2018 yellow vest movement, highlighted the recurring pattern of unrest during Macron’s presidency: Huge police deployments, violent outbursts, and persistent confrontations between government and citizenry.

Since his 2022 re-election, Macron has faced intense public anger over controversial pension reforms, and nationwide riots following the 2023 police killing of a teenager in Paris’s suburbs.

The demonstrations and intermittent clashes with riot police across Paris and beyond intensified the sense of crisis enveloping France after the government’s collapse on Monday, when former Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a parliamentary confidence vote.

Flash floods that struck two provinces in Indonesia this week have killed at least 14 people, according to disaster mitigation officials, with operations under way to search for the missing.

Torrential rains beginning on Monday caused flooding and landslides on the tourist island of Bali and in East Nusa Tenggara province.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto ordered his aides to accelerate the handling of the aftermath of the deadly flooding, locate the missing and deliver basic needs to displaced residents, Antara state news agency reported on Thursday.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency, BNPB, reported that 400 to 600 personnel from various institutions had been deployed to search for the missing and clear debris.

Rain caused rivers to burst their banks, tearing through nine cities and districts on Bali. Mud, rocks and trees tumbled onto mountainside hamlets and rising rivers submerged at least 120 neighbourhoods, resulting in a dozen landslides in several places, BNPB spokesperson Abdul Muhari said in a statement.

Muhari said on Thursday that the death toll had risen to 14 from nine.

Most of the deaths were reported in Bali, which mostly occurred when people were swept away after rivers burst their banks, Abdul said. At least two people remain missing.

Abdul added that more than 500 people have been evacuated to schools and mosques.

I Gusti Ngurah Jaya Negara, mayor of Bali’s capital city of Denpasar, declared an emergency status in response to the disaster, to ensure the delivery of services, Antara reported.

As river levels returned to normal on Thursday, people in Denpasar left crammed emergency shelters.

They found streets covered in mud and debris, cars lying upside down in parks or piled up in narrow alleys, and pavements strewn with sandals, pots and pans and old photographs.

Authorities took advantage of the receding waters to begin clearing away mud and removing piles of wet rubbish from the streets, and electricity was restored to tens of thousands of residences and businesses.

Heavy seasonal rain between September and March frequently causes flooding and landslides in Indonesia.

Climate change has also affected storm patterns, including the length and severity of the season, leading to heavier rain, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts.

In March, floods and landslides on Java island killed three people and left five others missing after heavy rain inundated two dozen towns.