The Evening: Protests sweep France

October 6, 2026

	By Matthew Cullen

Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.

Student protests spread across France
Cornell picks an investigator
Plus, the National Book Award finalists

Young people stand on a fountain in a square, one holding a sign that reads “ACAB.”

Demonstrators in Strasbourg today. Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Discontent grips France

Thousands of French parents, teachers, university students and union members rallied today in solidarity with the nation’s high school students, who have spent two weeks blockading schools to protest understaffing, overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated buildings.

Marches were held in more than 40 cities, drawing roughly 256,000 participants, officials said. The largest crowds massed in Paris, where thousands of students and their supporters marched between two of the city’s main squares. France’s prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, indicated that his government was taking their demands seriously.

The student demonstrations have been the most vivid manifestation of broader grievances across France. The chaos, our Paris bureau chief writes, can be traced to the country’s two-decade-long struggle to fund its state, now exacerbated by high borrowing costs, surging fuel prices and political uncertainty.

Jockeying is already underway to replace President Emmanuel Macron. Recent polls that show the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, would beat all her rivals in presidential elections next spring. Our newsletter The World explains France’s polycrisis.

See video of the protests. ➔

Sally Yates in a white suit looks toward her right as she speaks at a lectern.

Sally Yates in 2017. Steven Senne/Associated Press

Cornell picks prominent former prosecutor to lead investigation

Cornell University announced today that it had selected Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, to lead an independent internal review of the school’s handling of a former student’s claim that she was raped at a fraternity party in 2024. The move comes a day after thousands of students and faculty members gathered on campus for a protest. The school’s faculty senate plans a vote of no confidence in the administration.

Ketamine, a key factor in the alleged assault, has surged in popularity as a party drug.
The federal government has been muted, as the Trump administration’s approach to civil rights investigations has led to far fewer sexual assault cases being resolved.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Ex-C.I.A. officer admits to a $145 million scam

A former C.I.A. officer who authorities say stashed hundreds of gold bars in his home admitted in court today to a far larger web of deception. He could face up to 20 years behind bars.

The officer, David Rush, worked on highly classified programs. He acknowledged that he had created a fake secret government program to purchase roughly $145 million worth of luxury real estate in South Florida. He also admitted to sharing the identity of a human source with a foreign government — considered by the C.I.A. to be among the gravest violations. Read more about his very unusual case.

In other intelligence service news: The police in Germany arrested a former intelligence chief on suspicion of “treasonous espionage,” in an investigation with roots in an alleged kidnapping plot by a steakhouse heiress.

Two satellite images, one showing trees and grass in 2021 and one showing a large data center in 2026.

A Microsoft data center in Fayetteville, Ga. The New York Times

The data center boom is sweeping across America

In a race to maximize computing power and build more capable A.I. systems, tech companies and their partners have built more than 260 data center buildings since the beginning of 2025. More than 100 others are on their way, including some that rival the size of America’s largest manufacturing plants. See what the data center boom looks like from the sky.

One estimate suggested that the annual investment in A.I. construction could reach over 3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product by 2032 — a bigger annual share than what the country spent on building its railroads, electric grid and highways.

For more:

China is struggling to recruit foreign A.I. researchers.
Why do A.I. food images look so gross?

A map and model showing the location of the park across the street from the White House and where the fence will go.

The New York Times

Trump plans to fence off a historic protest site

Lafayette Square, just north of the White House, is one of the few places where you can be within earshot and view of the president. And for more than a century, it has been used as a prominent stage for demonstrations. Now, President Trump plans to add a permanent fence around the park, allowing officials to close off the space whenever they would like.

Ahead of the plan’s expected approval by panels filled with Trump appointees, The Times created a 3-D model of the area to show what it would look like.

More top news

Tennessee: Days after her failed execution, Christa Pike’s lawyers said she is conscious and speaking.
Stocks: The S&P 500 rose to a new high, extending a strong rally over the past six months.
Britain: A 22-year-old from London was the seventh person arrested in the R.A.F. Fairford investigation; officials said that the U.S. withdrew bombers from the base over an Iranian drone threat.
Washington: The Justice Department’s civil rights unit has been recruiting partisans and conspiracists with questionable work histories.
Business: Paramount officially closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Here’s what comes next.
Science: The Nobel Prize in Physics went to Francis Halzen for his work on a telescope embedded deep in South Pole ice, which detects ghostly particles known as neutrinos.
Middle East: In a single night, the Houthi militia took over Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Our maps show how.
Africa: Kenya recorded its first Ebola case.
Health: Mounting evidence suggests that exercise programs can improve cancer outcomes. But few places offer them, and insurance rarely covers them.

SMEAR CAMPAIGNS

The actress Blake Lively settled a suit against Justin Baldoni. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

The Times talked to several women in Hollywood who have filed lawsuits describing malicious public relations campaigns against them, spearheaded by three influential players. Read how such dark-web P.R. works.

TIME TO UNWIND

Four headshots of four people looking at the camera.

Clockwise from top left: The National Book Award finalists Edwidge Danticat, Valeria Luiselli, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Camonghne Felix. Clockwise from top left: Naima Green for The New York Times; Maria Moratti/Getty Images; David Levenson/Getty Images; Jati Lindsay

The National Book Award finalists

Every year, the National Book Foundation hands out awards for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature that are considered among America’s most prestigious literary prizes.

This year’s finalists include “Beginning Middle End,” a mother-daughter road-trip novel, and “Tree of Knowledge,” a nature collection by the experimental poet Victoria Chang. See the full list.

For more on books: Just days ago, Jeffrey Archer told us his new novel was the best thing he had ever written. He died yesterday at 86.

Footage of Gustavo Dudamel conducting and Joshua Barone putting on headphones.

Click to watch the video.

How Dudamel is putting his stamp on Mahler

Gustavo Dudamel, one of the most famous living conductors, has been the music director of the New York Philharmonic for about a month. He began his tenure with a piece that made him famous, Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, attempting to breathe new life into the music. Joshua Barone, our classical music critic, explains how Dudamel does it.

Watch (and listen) here ➔

A man on stage in a bodysuit holding a microphone; a man in a suit leaning over a desk in the Oval Office; a woman in an old black and white picture in a lab; a woman and a chimp making faces.

The New York Times

Dinner table topics

Do you know these iconic figures from history? Take our quiz and find out.
At last! Chanel’s Paris show offered