Thunder and lightning rang out in Marseille after chaos in the city over the weekend, revealing smashed windows and boarded up doors of hundreds of stores that were vandalized after protests were accompanied by riots.
The second largest city in France after Paris witnessed some of the worst violence, as chaos swept the country on Saturday. Employers say that more than 500 establishments were damaged, most of which were looted.
A police union official told the BBC that the weekend had been "catastrophic hell" for his colleagues. 118 police officers were injured, which represents more than 10 percent of the injuries recorded nationwide.
One hundred people were arrested in the coastal city, a quarter of them children.
But by Monday, the police presence was more visible on the city's streets, not the demonstrators. Demonstrations and gatherings were banned for eight hours in an attempt to avoid a third straight day of unrest.
This measure seemed to have worked, as the largest gathering we witnessed in the city center was a group of tired tourists strolling along the pier.
In addition, a nightly curfew for minors is expected to be announced in some parts of the city starting Tuesday.
Marseille is one of the most ethnically diverse French cities, and it is a city that has welcomed successive generations of new arrivals.
The 18-year-old student, Maryam, arrived in the southern city only a few weeks ago, from a rural area not far away.
She said: "It was very scary, because it was the first time I lived in a big city, and also the first time I participated in a demonstration."
She added that violence swept through the student demonstration in which her friends participated, when looters began attacking stores.
She said that the spirit of solidarity that prevailed in the march at its beginning was "beautiful," but the chaos that followed was "terrifying." She also said she was confused about whether more violence would force the government to listen.
“It is a very complex question whether violence is legitimate.”
She added: "But the thing is that France's history is largely based on revolutions, and sometimes we have to make a very big impact. Sometimes things go too far."
An organization representing police officers reported that the extent of the collapse of public order was a shock to the police force.
“It was a war,” said Arnaud Blaz, a member of a police union. “An unusual and unprecedented level of violence.”
Looting was reported across the city centre, including rue La Canobière, the Parisian equivalent of the Champs-Élysées in Marseille, rue Paradis and the Center Bourse mall. Companies and stores were also damaged in other areas, such as the Grand Littoral and Le Merlan malls in the north.
Blais said that he is concerned that the upcoming protests will follow the same destructive path that the city witnessed on Saturday, and that young men from the poor northern suburbs will exploit theft amid a state of chaos, ignited, in his view, by far-left extremists known in France as the “Black Bloc.”
He said, "It was members of the Black Bloc group who started the provocation, and then the young men took advantage of the situation and started looting. This led to complete chaos, and the police officers were running left and right, and in fact we prevailed."
I told him that the police were accused of being harsh with peaceful students, while letting the more violent ones loot local stores. He replied:
“This is absolutely not true,” and that the number of injured police officers was greater than the number of injured students.
He added: "We fired four thousand tear gas bombs and then we ran out of ammunition. So, at a certain point, you had no choice but to retreat."
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, whose resignation was rejected by President Emmanuel Macron after the riots, visited Marseille on Monday evening.
He went to the municipal building, which was briefly occupied by demonstrators on Saturday, and met with Socialist mayor Benoit Payen.
Payan said he wants answers from the government about allowing this chaos to happen.
He added: "The system was lost, and then an attempt was made to restore it. I believe that what happened from beginning to end was a complete failure."
He pointed out that the police suffer from a shortage of personnel and poor distribution and need to change their tactics.
“If there is not a radical change in approach, and if high school students remain the only target, we will see looting again,” he said.
He added: "I do not know what is left to be plundered in Marseille, but what is left of it will be plundered."
She explained that she previously worked in these poor northern suburbs, where poverty and crime rates are very high, and that she fears that an entire generation is rushing towards crime out of anger and despair.
"It's heartbreaking," she said. "To see children whose actions will put them completely outside of society. It's painful to watch."
