PARIS — More than 1,800 people were arrested across France after Saturday’s cost-of-living protests gave way to riots, looting and arson, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday, DW reported. Paris police reported 855 arrests in the capital, a figure they described as a record.
The interior ministry put nationwide turnout at 550,000, including 110,000 in Paris, while the CGT union estimated 800,000. Most marches were peaceful, but masked groups set cars and buildings on fire and looted shops in Paris, Marseille, Lille and other cities, BBC News reported. More than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured, the interior ministry said, and the Retail and Trade Federation said about 1,500 shops were damaged.
In Limoges, fire gutted the 143-year-old town hall and part of the building collapsed. “A wild horde” had “deliberately” set the blaze, said Maurice Barate, the prefect of Haute-Vienne. “There are no words to condemn what happened, so appalling is it,” Mayor Guillaume Guérin told broadcaster LCI. “The country is in chaos,” he said, as DW reported. In Lyon, the city’s historic tourist office burned, and in Marseille protesters used a metal fence as a battering ram to break into city hall.
In Saint-Étienne, a young man lost a hand to a small explosive, the city’s mayor said; the newspaper Le Figaro reported that the 17-year-old was hit by a grenade fired by police, according to DW. Nuñez blamed “several thousand far-left individuals” who were later joined by “delinquents who looted and ransacked numerous businesses.”
President Emmanuel Macron vowed that those responsible would be prosecuted and punished. “No room for violence in our Republic,” he wrote on X. The Élysée said he will address the nation at 8 p.m. Paris time on Sunday (11 a.m. Pacific).
The protests began with students demanding better schools and grew to take in fuel prices, wages and the grievances of farmers and firefighters, ahead of next spring’s presidential election. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party of having “legitimized the violence”; Mélenchon, who backed the marches, urged demonstrators to stay away from looting, calling it “contrary to our methods.”
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