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Chaos exploded across France on Saturday as 550,000 protesters flooded the streets, torched cars and buildings, looted from posh stores including Louis Vuitton and Hermès, and even threatened to storm the Élysée Palace—prompting a defiant President Emmanuel Macron to rage: “Let them come and get me!”
In Paris alone, an estimated 110,000 demonstrators took to the streets, with masked protestors backed by the country’s far-left opposition leader smashing storefronts, targeting luxury business and confronting riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons.
Outside of the capital, French police say 140 protests are happening at the same time.
Some protestors — dressed in black and wearing hoodies, masks and goggles to protect against tear gas — even threatened to storm the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the French president, as anger at Macron’s leadership reached a boiling point.
The goal of the protesters is to push the government to make major spending concessions in the cost of living, as well as in higher education, teacher salaries, rising living costs, and to protect pensions and public services from budget cuts.
And the violence extended far beyond the capital.
In Lyon, the city’s tourism center was set ablaze.
In Marseille and Lille, demonstrators reportedly broke into city halls. Inside Marseille’s municipal headquarters, vandals toppled a bust of Marianne, France’s national symbol, smashed television sets and spray-pained an anarchist emblem on a wall, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
Cars were torched, government buildings attacked and shops looted or targeted in cities including Paris, Rouen, Nantes, Toulouse and Marseille, said BFMTV.
In Bordeaux, looters smashed the storefronts of high-end shops, such as Apple and Louis Vuitton and Hermès.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said approximately 400 people who took part in the demonstrations were arrested nationwide, including 110 in Paris during a press update, the BBC.
Nuñez says there was a “clear desire” to target public buildings in many cities across the country, and blamed the major part of the destruction and vandalism on militants “associated with the hard and extreme left,” accusing them of deliberately targeting public institutions.
He said the vast majority of demonstrations were lawful, but said violent groups operating on their fringes had transformed peaceful protests into widespread destruction.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu echoed that statement and accused far-left organizations of orchestrating violence while opportunist groups exploited the student unrest to loot and destroy property.
“Peaceful protests have their full place in our Republic,” Lecornu declared. “Looting and attacks have none.”
Macron — who is up for election in April 2027 — issued a warning, promising the protestors will be dealt with harshly.
In a social media post, he wrote that those “who have vandalised and attacked” prefectures and businesses and “looted” town halls will be “prosecuted and punished”.
“We will all stand united against the sowers of chaos, who seek only to bring down our institutions and prevent those who peacefully express their demands from doing so,” he adds.
What began as a student-led protest in support of striking teachers has spiraled into a nationwide uprising, drawing trade unions, radical left-wing activists and the anti-establishment Yellow Vest movement into an increasingly volatile confrontation with authorities.
The disorder is backed by the far-left opposition leader La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is second in the polls for next year’s presidential elections, which take place in six months.
Mélenchon blamed the authorities for blocking protesters from reaching Place de la République in Paris, which he said had been designated as the start of the protest.
“Confrontation seems to be the goal of this ‘law enforcement’ strategy. Lamentable,” Mélenchon wrote on X.
The body overseeing the Paris Police Force defended the actions of its officers and said it will “not back down in the face of rioters.”