PARIS/LIMOGES: French President Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm on Sunday after France suffered one of its worst days of unrest in years, with 2,400 people arrested and shops looted or damaged during protests over high prices and declining public services.
Fresh clashes broke out in Paris and Marseille, where riot police intervened to prevent attempts to ransack businesses.
Nationwide demonstrations erupted into riots on Saturday, with a town hall set on fire, shops looted and buildings covered in graffiti as violent groups clashed with police in cities across France.
“Looking at these images, we have all asked ourselves: What was going through their minds? How can French people do this to France?” Macron said in a televised address.
“Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it. Tonight, we all feel anger and shame.”
Saturday’s unrest laid bare deep anger towards Macron, who leaves office in 2027 after a decade in power increasingly marked by social discontent, a weak economy and rising debt.
Macron said those protesting peacefully had legitimate grievances and should not be confused with those seeking to cause destruction.
He stopped short of declaring a state of emergency, as demanded by some right-wing politicians, but said the government would take steps to allow prefects to ban protests when necessary to protect public buildings and local businesses.
Paris protests ‘like a war zone’
The government blamed the violence on what it described as ultra-left groups, as well as criminals it said had instigated the looting.
One protester died after suffering a cardiac arrest during demonstrations in Paris on Saturday. Police made 2,400 arrests across France, while nearly 1,000 officers were injured, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.
Police again clashed with protesters and fired tear gas at Place de la République on Sunday afternoon, while protesters set fire to piles of bicycles. A Reuters witness said several hundred protesters appeared to be in the area.
A major clean-up operation took place in cities from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south, and from Strasbourg in the east to Bordeaux in the southwest, where a masked mob invaded the residence of the local prefect.
“It’s like a war zone here!” said Dutch entrepreneur Tije De Boer, who was visiting Paris with his children and said the unrest forced him to evacuate his hotel at Place de la République.
More than half a million people joined marches in scores of cities on Saturday, marking the convergence of a month-long student movement with broader social discontent over rising living costs and declining public services.
Several hundred shops damaged
While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully across France on Saturday, violent groups targeted public buildings, looted luxury boutiques and supermarkets, and attacked police vehicles and officers.
Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner going into next year’s presidential campaign, also called for calm, saying France must not become accustomed to images of the country being battered, abused and ransacked.
“Violence is not an opinion. Destruction is not a form of expression. And chaos cannot serve as a project for France,” she said in a video address.
Hard-left France Unbowed presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said Macron needed to address the demands of protesting high-school students.
In Limoges, known for its porcelain, the collapse of the town hall’s clock tower in a blaze revived memories of the 2019 fire that devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Mayor Guillaume Guerin said too few national police officers had been deployed to the city.
“There was a clear, premeditated intention to burn down the town hall, and the people inside feared for their lives,” Guerin said on Sunday.
He threatened to resign if the city did not receive the funds needed to repair the town hall.
Economy Minister Roland Lescure pledged support for businesses that suffered losses.
“Those who break things will pay, repair the damage and be held accountable for their intention to sow chaos,” Lescure said in a statement.
Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard said 50 of the retailer’s shops had been damaged, including 20 that were looted, with losses running into tens of millions of euros.