More than 1,200 people were arrested in France on Saturday after demonstrations supporting high school students clashed with police. Officials said buildings were set ablaze and shops looted as some marches spiralled out of control.
Police fired teargas in confrontations with protesters. Demonstrations across the country drew groups angry about high prices and the fraying of a social welfare system. While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully 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.
Nuñez said that the state was not planning to declare a state of emergency. "I very strongly condemn the violence we have seen," he said.
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. In Marseille, protesters stormed the town hall, ramming the door with security barriers. They briefly managed to enter the municipal building, where a protester spray-painted an "A" for anarchy on a wall before 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. Rioters 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 to use as missiles. A lorry was set on fire and flames spread to a nearby building. Along Boulevard Magenta, dozens of shops were broken into and looted.
Saturday’s mobilisation followed calls on social media to revive the gilets jaunes 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.
The CGT, one of France’s biggest labour unions, has backed the protests, calling for higher wages and pensions, lower prices and the protection of public services. About 45% of French people are worried about the rising cost of living and inflation, according to an October survey.
The interior ministry reported that 550,000 people attended marches in the capital and other cities, while the CGT union said 800,000 people participated. Whole streets in Paris have been devastated, according to the city’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire.
