More than 1,200 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations later spiralling out of control as buildings were set ablaze and shops looted.
Police fired teargas in confrontations with protesters, as demonstrations across France were boosted by other groups angry about high prices and the fraying of a social welfare system. While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully in street marches in scores of cities, violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and officers.
Late on Saturday, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,200 people had been arrested and 150 police hurt.
Interior minister Laurent Nuñez said the official demonstration had been hijacked by casseurs – “opportunistic delinquents who had seen a chance to pillage and loot … we will find them and deal with them firmly”.
He said the state was not planning to declare a state of emergency but added: “I very strongly condemn the violence we have seen.”
In the city of Limoges, the town hall was “largely lost” to a fire set by masked protesters, the top regional official told the AFP news agency.
“The roof has collapsed on to lower floors, except the west wing, and two-thirds of the exterior has already disappeared,” local prefect Maurice Barate, said, adding that the extensive damage to the 143-year-old building was a “catastrophe for heritage.”
In Marseille, protesters stormed the town hall, ramming the door with security barriers they removed from the street. They briefly managed to enter the municipal building, where a protester spray-painted an “A” for anarchy on a wall before the police removed them.
Around Place de la République in central Paris, a peaceful march turned violent, with police firing teargas at black-clad and masked rioters who threw fireworks and paving stones, attacked a bank and looted a sports shop.
“We’re taking the Bastille!” one demonstrator yelled.
Others set wheelie bins on fire and threw firecrackers inside or pushed over glass recycling bins and picked up the bottles inside to use as missiles. A lorry was set on fire and flames spread to a nearby building.
Along Boulevard Magenta, one of the main south-north axis north of Place de la République running through a mostly working-class area, dozens of shops were broken into and looted.
Groups tried to break into the Galeries Lafayette department store, smashed banks, ransacked a Lacoste store and other boutiques and looted a mobile phone shop.
Residents in surrounding streets were forced to close windows and doors as huge clouds of teargas rose to roof level.
Saturday’s mobilisation followed calls on social media to revive the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement, which emerged in 2018 against social injustice.
The protests began last month at schools in the poor northern suburbs of Paris, where anger over teacher absences and shabby facilities quickly morphed into a nationwide movement against inequality, weak public spending and falling standards.
Saturday’s protests called for teachers and students, labourers, pensioners and farmers to join the protests and widen the movement.
The CGT, one of France’s biggest labour unions, has also backed the protests, calling for “higher wages and pensions, lower prices and the protection of public services that meet people’s needs”.
About 45% of French people are worried about the rising cost of living and inflation, according to a 2,000-person survey conducted in October.
The violence began on the sidelines of marches in the capital and other cities which the interior ministry reported were attended by 550,000 people. The CGT union said 800,000 people participated.
Protesters in hi-vis vests blocked streets, an echo of the unrest that dogged President Emmanuel Macron’s previous term, and in Marseille rubbish bins were set alight.
Both the far left and far right in France sought to capitalise on the protest movement, with the left positioning itself on the side of the protesters and the right backing the police.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, marched in a demonstration on Tuesday and has expressed support for student protesters. He urged demonstrators to stay away from looting, describing it as “contrary to our methods”.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen condemned “the rioters” and claimed that the party of Melenchon, had “legitimised the violence”.
A large police presence was visible in central Paris, especially near landmarks such as the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, which were excluded from the routes of the two official demonstrations.
Whole streets in Paris “have been devastated”, the city’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, said.
“We are fighting because the cost of living is too harsh, because the price of fuel is too high, because high school pupils are being violently attacked and hurt all over the country just for trying to protest and ask for more teachers and decent learning conditions,” said a 19-year-old protester in Paris who gave her name as Lola.
Macron is entering the final stretch of his presidency, leaving behind a polarised electorate and a badly fragmented political landscape.
On Friday, the president appealed for calm and respect for people and property as officials warned of possible violence.
“There is a constitutional right to protest and to express oneself, and I have always been vigilant and attentive that that right is fully respected,” he said. “But this right comes with the need to respect. Respect for people, respect for property, and therefore a commitment not to insult or destroy.”
Macron denounced as “unacceptable” the potential presence of people “solely to cause damage and create unrest”.
Nuñez said hundreds of protest actions and more than 80 marches were expected nationwide, including spontaneous gatherings, street demonstrations and blockades.
Police banned some other proposed gatherings in central Paris. Many Métro stations were closed on Saturday at the police’s request, including those around the Champs-Élysées and near the presidential palace, parliament and government offices.
In recent weeks, there have been thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries, and schools set on fire as the new school year descended into nationwide student protests that are influencing the country’s presidential election campaign and drawing international attention.
The police watchdog is investigating at least two dozen allegations of police violence, while the French prime minister said that more than 900 police officers had been injured.
Among protesters, particularly gruesome wounds suffered by some teenagers have been blamed on police riot-control weapons. Nuñez suspended the use of a type of police stun grenade against the young demonstrators after a 15-year-old lost a hand, but said that they could be used on Saturday.
On Tuesday, the climate and social justice activist Greta Thunberg joined students at a school in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
Agencies contributed reporting
