Photos Show French Protests Escalate into Looting, Fires and Violent Clashes
France awoke on Sunday to streets littered with burned cars, shattered shop windows and looted premises after demonstrations over the cost of living erupted into some of the most serious unrest in recent years. What began on Saturday as largely peaceful marches against soaring prices and declining living standards quickly turned violent, with masked youths setting fire to vehicles, breaking into stores and attacking public buildings in cities such as Paris, Marseille, Nice, Bordeaux, Lille and Strasbourg.
Paris deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire described the damage as “whole streets have been devastated,” while police responded with tear gas and water cannons after protesters hurled projectiles and ignited fireworks. Authorities said roughly 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police officers were injured. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu called it “a miracle the toll isn’t higher.”
Town halls in Limoges, Marseille and Lille were among the targets, as were a police compound in Bordeaux and a tourist office in Lyon. In Saint‑Étienne a 17‑year‑old lost his right hand after a crowd‑control grenade struck him.
The turmoil follows weeks of student demonstrations demanding greater investment in education and comes six months before the presidential election. Both far‑right and left‑wing candidates blamed each other for the violence, while President Emmanuel Macron pledged that those responsible for looting and attacks on public buildings “will be prosecuted and punished.”
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez reported that 110 marches attracted about 550,000 participants nationwide, a figure that organizers – including the CGT labour union and student groups – disputed, estimating roughly 800,000 attendees. Nunez characterized the troublemakers as “extremely violent, radical far‑left groups” seeking confrontations with police and targeting public buildings, joined by individuals intent on looting shops; he added that most of those detained are adults.
In Paris, police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse hooded and masked demonstrators who were throwing fireworks, paving stones and other objects at officers in Republic Square, northeast of the city centre. Several metro stations, including those near the Champs‑Élysées, the presidential palace, parliament and other government offices, were closed at police request.
The unrest was sparked in part by calls on social media to revive the “yellow vest” movement, which first emerged in 2018 to protest a planned fuel tax increase. The movement, which had organized Saturday’s “yellow and youth” demonstrations, saw gangs of young people roaming the streets, intermittently confronting police, setting fires and breaking into shuttered shops to loot their shelves. French firefighters worked throughout the day to extinguish burning vehicles and other blazes that erupted during the protests.