PARIS/LIMOGES: French President Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm on Sunday after nationwide unrest led to clashes with police, looting and damage to public buildings and businesses amid growing discontent over rising living costs and declining public services.
Fresh clashes erupted in Paris and Marseille, where riot police intervened to prevent businesses from being ransacked. The violence followed nationwide demonstrations on Saturday that escalated into riots, with a town hall set ablaze, shops looted and buildings defaced with graffiti.
In a televised address, Macron condemned the destruction, expressing anger and shame over the scenes of violence.
“Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it,” he said.
However, the French president stressed that peaceful protesters expressing legitimate concerns should not be confused with those responsible for destruction and looting.
The unrest has highlighted widespread dissatisfaction with Macron, whose presidency is due to end in 2027 after a decade marked by social tensions, economic difficulties and rising public debt.
Macron stopped short of declaring a state of emergency, as demanded by some right-wing politicians, but said the government would allow local authorities to ban demonstrations where necessary to protect public buildings and businesses.
The government blamed the violence on what it described as far-left groups and criminals involved in looting.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said one protester died after suffering a cardiac arrest during demonstrations in Paris on Saturday. He also reported 2,400 arrests across France and nearly 1,000 police officers injured.
Police clashed with protesters again on Sunday at Place de la Republique in Paris, firing tear gas as demonstrators set fire to piles of bicycles. A Reuters witness estimated that several hundred protesters were in the area.
Cleanup operations were underway in cities across France, from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south and from Strasbourg in the east to Bordeaux in the southwest. In Bordeaux, a masked group reportedly entered 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 had forced him to evacuate his hotel near Place de la Republique.
More than half a million people joined demonstrations in dozens of cities on Saturday, as a month-long student movement converged with broader public anger over the cost of living and declining public services.
Although hundreds of thousands demonstrated peacefully, violent groups targeted public buildings, looted luxury stores and supermarkets, and attacked police vehicles and officers.
Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen also appealed for calm, warning against allowing France to become accustomed to scenes of destruction and looting.
“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, meanwhile, said Macron needed to respond to the demands of protesting high-school students.
In Limoges, the collapse of the town hall’s clock tower in a fire revived memories of the 2019 blaze that devastated Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral. Limoges Mayor Guillaume Guerin said the city had not received sufficient national police support.
“There was a clear, premeditated intention to burn down the town hall, and the people inside feared for their lives,” Guerin told Reuters on Sunday. He threatened to resign if the city did not receive the funding required to repair the building.
Economy Minister Roland Lescure pledged support for business owners affected by the unrest, saying those responsible for destruction would be held accountable and made to pay for the damage.
Carrefour chief executive Alexandre Bompard told French broadcaster BFMTV that 50 of the retailer’s stores had been damaged, including 20 that were looted. He estimated that losses from the damage would run into tens of millions of euros.
