PARIS — Police arrested at least 1,800 people across France after violent groups clashed with officers and looted shops during nationwide demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands who denounced rising living costs and poor conditions in schools.
Authorities said masked groups on Saturday set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities.
In Limoges, in central France, flames engulfed the 19th century City Hall, causing its roof to collapse. Haute-Vienne prefect Maurice Barate told LCI television that the fire was deliberately set and nearly destroyed the building. The blaze was under control Sunday.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold an emergency meeting with top government officials on Sunday afternoon, before addressing the nation at 8 p.m., according to his office.
“The right to protest is a fundamental right. Deliberately and collectively sowing disorder through violence is not,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez wrote on X, pointing to the looting of hundreds of businesses in many cities including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux.
About 550,000 people took part in protests across France, according to authorities, while organizers counted about 800,000. More than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured, Nuñez said.
One person died of a heart attack, Paris police said in a statement, without providing details. Paris prosecutors’ office said it was investigating.
Parisians deplore shattered shops and a damaged square
Around Paris’ Place de la République on Sunday morning, dislodged cobblestones, shattered storefronts and broken glass marked the aftermath of the events. Looting and damage were reported around the square and in some other tourist and shopping areas in the city center.
Paris police said Sunday that 855 people were arrested in the French capital region alone. The Paris prosecutors’ office said that 557 of them were kept in police custody.
“I am actually stunned by the level of destruction and violence that was expressed,” Marie Peyreigne, a 57-year-old government employee said, wondering what led to the mayhem.
Inspecting the damage, many Parisians took photos of the partially dismantled base of the central monument at Place de la République — a statue of Marianne, a symbol of France.
Jean Foissy, 74, said he wanted to join the protest but found “a wall of riot police and fires everywhere,” and went back home.
“I was very scared,” he said. “I’ve been a Parisian since I was born, so when I got here, it almost made me want to cry because I find it so bad, it hurts me.”
Margaux Eude, 26, said she supports the protest movement but “didn’t think it would escalate like this.”
“It’s the troublemakers who came, and it breaks my heart because it delegitimizes the movement,” she said.
Political leaders trade blame
Political leaders across the spectrum sought to parlay the fallout of Saturday’s riots into political capital, looking ahead to next spring’s presidential election.
Far-right leader and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen lashed out at far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who joined the Paris march. “Looting, ransacking, destroying and attacking law enforcement: Rioters have again spoiled the Oct. 17 demonstrations for the protection of purchasing power,” Le Pen wrote on X.
Her running mate, Jordan Bardella, said on X that “if the silent majority of French decide it, we will reestablish order for the long term.”
Mélenchon, for his part, traded barbs with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, accusing him of “playing with fire” and alleging that “by banking on degradation, you have only succeeded in uniting all youths and workers’ unions.”
Mélenchon added that “my message is clear: Those who share our fight have no business in looting or destruction.”
President Trump posted “France is burning!” on his social media platform, apparently linking the unrest to “the immigration of people from an entirely different world.”
“Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!” he wrote.
French authorities and police have not linked immigrants to the rioting and have repeatedly attributed some of the violence to “radical far-left groups” and other people who joined to loot.
Hundreds of businesses looted
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire announced the creation of an emergency unit to support businesses and assess the damage.
“The scale of the damage is considerable and unprecedented,” Grégoire wrote in an open letter. “Paris is a city of freedoms, debate and demonstrations. It must remain so. But it must also be a city where everyone can work and run a business safely.”
Police said groups of hundreds of people formed unauthorized marches across central Paris on Saturday. “By late afternoon, a new phase began with the arrival of large numbers of people whose sole aim was to steal and loot, taking advantage of the unrest,” police said.
The mayors of Paris, Marseille and Lyon, the three largest cities, requested a meeting with the prime minister in the coming days “given the extent of the damage and the seriousness of the situation.”
In the southern port city of Marseille, some protesters briefly forced their way into the lobby of City Hall, and a group of people wearing hoods and masks damaged a police station. In Lyon, a fire broke out inside a tourist office.
Corbet and Turnbull write for the Associated Press.
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