France reels after cost-of-living protests see widespread violence

The French government has said around 1,200 arrests were made across France in relation to Saturday’s events and that 150 police officers and gendarmes were injured over the course of the day.

Between 550,000 and 800,000 people took to the streets of France on Saturday, mostly peacefully and often unaware of the unprecedented violence breaking out in some of the country’s major cities.

Limoges city hall went up in flames, as did the iconic tourist office on Place Bellecour in Lyon. Vandals also forced their way into town halls in Marseille, Lille, and Angers, whilst in Bordeaux, the prefect’s residence was ransacked.

Widespread destruction

“Scenes of insurrection,” reads the front page of Le Parisien.

In Paris, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said “entire streets” had been “systematically devastated” after the French capital saw violent clashes between protesters and police.

The French capital quite literally went up in flames on Saturday. By midday, Place de la République was littered with projectiles, police were clashing with rioters in clouds of tear gas, and a thick column of black smoke rose above the city’s iconic rooftops as emergency service vehicles burned.

After nightfall, in several districts, Parisians watched in fear from restaurants and café terraces as groups of young people continued to rampage through the city.

Dressed in black and wearing masks, the groups moved either in their dozens or in small, scattered bands.

Each time, they used the same tactic: several would approach a shop and attack its metal shutters until they give way, before people rushed in to loot the premises.

They left behind smashed storefronts, charred bicycles, and stolen goods scattered on the ground.

Riot police units, who were charged with maintaining public order, followed alongside firefighters as the groups moved on to find more targets ahead.

The looters did not spare the Champs-Élysées, and clashes with the police moved closer to the Élysée Palace and the National Assembly.

The government has said around 1,200 arrests were made across France and that 150 police officers and gendarmes were injured over the course of the day.

Politicians react

Addressing the protests in a post on social media on Saturday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was “no place for violence” in France.

“Those who have vandalised and attacked prefectures and shops alike, and even looted our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished,” he wrote.

For his part, the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has spoken of “groups of several hundred or even thousands of rioters, very clearly instigated by the far left.”

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said “legitimate social demands” had been “taken hostage by the far left and by the speeches of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s MPs who, by legitimising violence, by seeing order as oppression and disorder as a right, are trying to plunge the country into chaos.”

According to Mélenchon, the far-left presidential candidate, the “absurd leadership has opened the door to chaos.

“The leaders no longer know what to do; the rank and file are afraid and running amok,” he wrote on X.

“I do not know who will hear my voice in such circumstances, but my message is clear: those who share our struggle have no place in looting and vandalism,” he added.

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