Macron urges calm as France counts cost of worst unrest in years

President Emmanuel Macron appealed for calm yesterday (18 October), a day after France experienced one of its worst outbreaks of unrest in years, with thousands arrested and shops looted or damaged following protests over rising prices and declining public services.

Fresh clashes broke out in Paris and Marseille, where riot police intervened to prevent attempts to ransack businesses.

Nationwide demonstrations descended into riots on Saturday, with a town hall set ablaze, shops looted and buildings covered in graffiti as violent groups clashed with police in cities across the country.

"Looking at these images, we have all asked ourselves: What was going through their minds? How can French people do this to France?" Macron said in a televised address to the nation.

"Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it. Tonight, we all feel anger and shame."

Saturday's unrest laid bare deep anger towards Macron, who is due to leave office in 2027 after a decade in power increasingly defined by social discontent, a weak economy and mounting debt.

Macron said those protesting peacefully had legitimate grievances and that their actions should not be confused with those seeking to wreak havoc.

He stopped short of declaring a state of emergency, as demanded by some right-wing politicians, but said the government would take steps to allow prefects to ban protests if necessary to protect public buildings and local businesses.

Paris protests 'like a war zone'

The government blamed the violence on what it described as far-left groups, as well as criminals it said had instigated the looting.

One protester died on Saturday after suffering a cardiac arrest during demonstrations in Paris. Police made 2,400 arrests across France, while nearly 1,000 officers were injured, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.

Police again clashed with protesters and fired tear gas at Place de la Republique on Sunday afternoon, while protesters set fire to piles of bicycles. A Reuters witness said there appeared to be several hundred protesters in the area.

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

"It's like a war zone here!" exclaimed Dutch entrepreneur Tije De Boer, who was visiting Paris with his children and said the unrest had forced him to evacuate his hotel at Place de la République.

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

Several hundred shops damaged

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

Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner ahead of next year's presidential campaign, also called for calm, saying France must not become accustomed to images of the country being battered, abused and ransacked.

"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 Mélenchon said Macron needed to respond to the demands of protesting secondary school students.

In Limoges, famed for its porcelain, the collapse of the town hall's clock tower in a fiery blaze revived memories of the 2019 fire that devastated Paris' Notre-Dame Cathedral. Mayor Guillaume Guerin said too few national police officers had been deployed to his city.

"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 funds needed to repair the town hall.

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.

French retailer Carrefour's chief executive Alexandre Bompard told French broadcaster BFMTV that 50 of the company's shops had been damaged, including 20 that were looted, with losses from the damage running into tens of millions of euros.