France counts cost of worst unrest in years

PARIS: France woke on Sunday to the wreckage of one of its most violent days of unrest in years after protests over high prices and public services left one demonstrator dead, hundreds of police injured and nearly 1,800 people arrested.

Nationwide demonstrations erupted into riots on Saturday, with a town hall torched, shops ransacked, and buildings covered in graffiti as violent groups clashed with police in cities across the country.

One protester died after suffering a cardiac arrest during demonstrations in Paris, where police made a record 855 arrests. Across France, more than 500 officers were injured, the interior minister said.

“It’s like a war zone here,” said Dutch entrepreneur Tije De Boer, who had come to Paris with his children to visit a friend and said the protests forced him to evacuate his hotel at Place de la Republique, which suffered major damage on Saturday.

More than half a million people joined marches in scores of cities, marking the convergence of a month-long student movement with broader social discontent against rising living costs and declining public services.

President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation at 2000 local time (1800 GMT) on Sunday, his office said.

Several hundred shops damaged

While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully, violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, looted luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and officers.

A massive clean-up operation began in cities from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south and Strasbourg in the east to Bordeaux in the southwest, where a masked mob invaded the residence of the local prefect.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said several hundred shops had been damaged on Saturday.

In Paris, smashed shop windows, burnt-out bicycles and spray-painted slogans bore witness to a day that began largely with peaceful demonstrations but descended into violence.

In Limoges, southwestern France, mayor Guillaume Guerin denounced the chaos after the city’s 143-year-old town hall was set ablaze and partially destroyed in an arson attack on Saturday, drawing comparisons to the 2019 fire that devastated Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral.

“There was a clear, premeditated intention to burn down the town hall, and the people inside feared for their lives,” Guerin told Reuters.

He threatened to resign if the city did not receive the million euros needed to repair the city hall.

The unrest has increased pressure on President Macron and his government, with a presidential election due next year. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu blamed the unrest on the “ultra-left” and criminals.

Economy Minister Roland Lescure pledged support on Sunday for business owners who 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.

Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave said up to 100 stores had been looted in his city, while Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan announced emergency financial aid to support those businesses impacted by the violence.

French retailer Carrefour’s Chief Executive Alexandre Bompard told BFMTV that 50 of the company’s shops had been damaged including 20 that were looted, with losses from the damage running into the dozens of millions of euros.

The protests began last month over school conditions and teacher shortages in working-class suburbs, before broadening into a movement against inequality, public spending cuts and the rising cost of living.