On Saturday 17 October 2026, ICI writes that “the Yellow Vests, the high-school students and the unions have launched a general call against the high cost of living” (translated); the Union syndicale des lycéens had called, like several organisations, to join that day the “large demonstration” (translated) of the “yellow vests” (translated) (AFP dispatch of 14 October, picked up by Sud Radio). In Marseille, the mayor says that “the vandals and the looters have spoiled the high-school students’ demands” (translated) (BFMTV).
As early as late morning, before the departure of the afternoon march, the municipal police station is targeted. According to the police prefecture, cited by BFMTV, ICI and franceinfo, windows are broken, smoke bombs thrown inside, an attempted fire is averted and there are no injuries; the prefecture condemns “actions” (translated) that “do not correspond to any demand” (translated) (BFMTV). The mayor tells franceinfo that the police station and the town hall were “broken into with rather violent intrusions by vandals, very far from the protesters” (translated); he describes “a few hundred hooded individuals wandering around the city” (translated), with a single company of CRS in town that morning, and says he asked in writing the day before for the police station to be protected. He declares: “Vandals entered, wrecked the entirety of the central municipal police station, then they came in front of the town hall” (translated) (France 3). The mayor thus links two events that the other sources read describe separately.
Le Populaire du Centre repeats the account of Le Parisien: several hundred people, some equipped with hammers, sledgehammers or bollards, a bulletproof window smashed, several people inside the premises, fires started inside with smoke bombs, furniture and computers destroyed; a passer-by, who says he thought of the residents of the building above the station, entered when the crowd ebbed, barricaded the entrances and put out the fires with a fire extinguisher for nearly thirty minutes, before the arrival of the marins-pompiers and then the CRS. The photograph published by ICI with the caption “The municipal police station vandalised in Marseille” (translated) shows a facade covered in tags and paint splashes and a broken display window.
The same day, in the early afternoon, several dozen protesters briefly enter the lobby of the town hall, on the Vieux-Port, after breaking down the door while shouting “It’s the Revolution, we’re taking the Bastille” (translated) (AFP, franceinfo); a bust of Marianne is thrown to the ground, a tag is written on a wall, televisions are broken (BFMTV); the group is dispersed within a few minutes by law enforcement (franceinfo), and the mayor tells BFMTV that “the damage is objectively quite limited” (translated). France 3 places the attack on the police station “a few hundred metres from there” (translated) (from the town hall). A conference call then brings together the mayor, the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior, and two additional companies of CRS are deployed in Marseille, says the mayor (BFMTV).
The perpetrators are not identified in the sources read: the mayor speaks of “vandals” (translated) “very far from the protesters” (translated); no specific arrest for this incident is reported.