French police arrested "nearly 1,000" people Saturday in nationwide protests in which officers were confronted with "an extremely elevated level of violence" from black-clad extremists, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
Although marches over the cost of living "passed off well" in cities, "ultra-left" groups took to throwing projectiles and aiming fireworks at police to provoke clashes, he told journalists.
Two people were "seriously injured", he said: one in the city of Toulouse, where a 20-year-old man reportedly had fingers blown off, and the other in Clermont-Ferrand. He did not give details of either case.
Nunez compared Saturday's figures with those from a week ago, when a first round of national demonstrations over the cost of living degenerated into street violence, with hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people ending up being arrested.
He said that the nearly 1,000 arrests recorded on Saturday compared with the same time a week ago, when authorities had recorded 385 arrests.
He also said that, while some shops and businesses had been vandalised and looted on Saturday, "the scale was far smaller" than a week earlier, and he stressed that shopping centres had been well protected this time.
In Paris, where the main demonstration passed off largely peacefully but clashes broke out with police as the crowd dispersed, Nunez said "several thousand radical activists gathered at the rear of the march, including around 500 individuals identified as rioters".
Ensuing clashes in the capital lasted for around two hours, he said.
The minister said that in the southern cities of Cannes and Montpellier, authorities "for the first time" saw far-right activists who sought confrontations with "ultra-left militants" or who claimed to be there to protect businesses.
Overall, Nunez said, Saturday's outcome appeared more "positive" than a week ago, with more police on the streets acting more rapidly, conducting more pre-demonstration checks and better protecting businesses.
The authorities would remain "on high alert" through the night and into Sunday, he said.
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This article originally appeared on AFP at https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/nearly-1-000-arrested-french-181509011.html