French police arrested at least 1,800 people across the country after violent groups clashed with officers and looted shops during nationwide demonstrations that drew hundreds of thousands of people protesting rising living costs and poor conditions in schools.
Authorities said masked groups set fires and attacked public buildings, including city halls, in several cities on Saturday.
In Limoges, a city in central France, flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall, causing its roof to collapse. Haute-Vienne prefect Maurice Barate told LCI television that the fire was deliberately set and nearly destroyed the building. The fire was brought under control on Sunday.
French President Emmanuel Macron will hold an emergency meeting with senior government officials on Sunday afternoon before addressing the nation at 8pm, his office said.
“The right to protest is a fundamental right. Deliberately and collectively sowing disorder through violence is not,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez wrote on X, referring to the looting of hundreds of businesses in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Nice, Limoges and other cities.
Nuñez and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed some of the violence on “radical far-left groups,” saying others later joined in to loot businesses.
Paris police said on Sunday that 855 people had been arrested in the French capital region alone. Authorities estimated that around 550,000 people took part in protests across France, while organisers put the figure at about 800,000.
More than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured, Nuñez said.
One person died of a heart attack, Paris police said in a statement, without providing further details. The Paris prosecutor’s office said it was investigating the death.
Around Place de la République in Paris, dislodged cobblestones, shattered shopfronts and broken glass were visible on Sunday morning, reflecting the scale of the previous day's unrest. Looting and damage were reported around the square and in other tourist and shopping areas in the city centre.
Police said groups ranging from several hundred to more than 1,000 people staged unauthorised marches across central Paris on Saturday.
“By late afternoon, a new phase began with the arrival of large numbers of people whose sole aim was to steal and loot, taking advantage of the unrest,” police said.
The mayors of Paris, Marseille and Lyon, the country's three largest cities, requested a meeting with the prime minister in the coming days, citing “the extent of the damage and the seriousness of the situation.”
In the southern port city of Marseille, some protesters briefly forced their way into the City Hall lobby, while a group of hooded and masked people damaged a police station.
In Lyon, a fire broke out inside a tourist office.