France was rocked by a night of rioting on Saturday as weeks of student protests over the state of the country’s schools converged with nationwide marches against the high cost of living. Protesters fought police a few hundred meters from the Élysée Palace in Paris, set fire to the historic town hall in Limoges and looted stores in Marseille and other cities.
President Emmanuel Macron vowed a firm response. “Those who smash and destroy, who carry out attacks on prefectures and businesses, who loot our town halls will be prosecuted and punished,” he said in an evening statement. “There is no room for violence in our Republic.”
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed “ultra-left groups” for orchestrating the violence and said officers had faced “violence of extreme intensity.” Warning that the unrest must not become a “warm-up” for the presidential election, he said: “We will not be intimidated.”
Stones and an overturned car near the Élysée
Police vehicles became a main target in Paris, where groups of protesters chased and pelted cars and vans as officers tried to clear the streets. Rue Cambacérès, roughly 400 meters from the presidential offices, was littered with stones, and a car lay overturned. A Le Parisien reporter compared the scenes to “urban guerrilla warfare.”
In the 10th arrondissement, protesters forced their way into the district town hall during a “Pink October” breast cancer awareness event, leaving about 100 people trapped inside for a time. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said the “vast majority” of marchers had been peaceful but condemned the damage, saying: “Entire streets have been ravaged.”
As night fell, demonstrators clambered onto the gilded equestrian statue of Joan of Arc in central Paris while onlookers held up their phones.
Elsewhere in the capital, marchers invoked the French Revolution with a chant aimed at the president. Referring to King Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine, they shouted: “Let’s cut off the king’s head. Macron, we’ll start again.”
A 143-year-old town hall goes up in flames
In Limoges, in central France, masked protesters set a police car on fire outside the town hall before breaking windows and getting inside, where they started a fire, witnesses said. Flames soon tore through the roof.
Maurice Barate, the prefect of Haute-Vienne, said the roof had caved in onto the floors below everywhere except the west wing, and two-thirds of the facade was gone. He described the loss of the 143-year-old building as a “catastrophe for heritage” and a “deliberate act by hooligans.” Shops in the city center were also looted.
From electronics to luxury goods: a wave of looting
In Marseille, rioters stripped a Fnac store, carrying out phones, game consoles and headphones, while dozens of other shops were looted and a sports shoe store caught fire.
Footage also showed a masked crowd in hoodies breaking through the door of a Louis Vuitton boutique.
A tourist office was set ablaze in Lyon, and in Bordeaux the official residence of the Gironde prefect was ransacked, prompting the deployment of the RAID police tactical unit. In Lille, protesters stormed the town hall, and in Saint-Étienne a protester was reported to have lost a hand to a police crowd-control grenade.
Running battles between demonstrators and riot police continued for hours in several cities, with officers firing tear gas at crowds that hurled stones and bottles.
Not all protesters approved of the violence. One video showed a man who attacked firefighters being tackled to the ground and beaten by other demonstrators.
How a school protest became a national revolt
France’s largest union, the CGT, estimated turnout at around 800,000, while the Interior Ministry counted 550,000 protesters and said about 400 people had been detained by the evening. The Yellow Vests movement and trade unions had called on students to join Saturday’s mass protest.
The unrest began in mid-September, when students at a high school in Créteil, outside Paris, blocked its entrance after teachers struck over a lack of staff and resources. Their complaints include teacher shortages, overcrowded classes of 32 to 35 students, crumbling buildings, classrooms that hit 40 degrees Celsius during summer heat waves and the stress of the Parcoursup university admissions platform. Unions blame budget cuts and school closures.
The blockades spread across the country and reached universities in early October. By Oct. 6, more than 5,000 people had been detained, 87% of them minors, according to the Justice Ministry. The government suspended the use of stun grenades after a 15-year-old in Lens lost a hand, and Lecornu ordered ministers to come up with initial proposals by the end of October.
The protests have echoed beyond France. Police in Milan fired tear gas at demonstrators on Saturday and clashes also broke out in Brussels. The United Nations had previously expressed concern over the violence.
