President Emmanuel Macron will deliver a televised speech to the French at eight o'clock in the evening (18:00 GMT), according to what the presidency announced, in the wake of widespread protests that included acts of violence and riots.
The Elysee explained that the speech will be broadcast after a meeting held by Macron with a number of ministers, on the day the country is counting the repercussions of the protests that organized protests against the high cost of living, and witnessed confrontations between demonstrators and the police, in addition to acts of burning, looting, and storming of official buildings.
The protests come six months before the French go to the polls to elect Macron's successor.
The French President is scheduled to leave on Monday on a three-day tour that will include four Arab countries in the Gulf affected by the war in the Middle East.
On Sunday, France woke up to the extent of the damage caused by widespread riots and looting, which overshadowed protests in which hundreds of thousands participated on Saturday, denouncing the high cost of living, six months before the presidential elections.
Macron had said on X that “everyone who committed acts of sabotage, attacked institutions or companies, or participated in acts of looting” would be pursued and punished.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Le Cornu announced the arrest of 1,200 people due to the violence that took place in the country, and the injury of 150 police and gendarmerie members, while the Paris police reported the arrest of 855 people in the capital alone, describing the number as a “record number.”
About 800,000 people participated in the protests, according to organizers, while Interior Minister Laurent Nunez estimated the number of participants at about 550,000.
Paris and major French cities witnessed acts of vandalism and looting that targeted hundreds of institutions and stores, while debris and burning motorcycle bodies were scattered in the streets.
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said, "Entire streets were subjected to systematic vandalism."
According to Agence France-Presse correspondents, the violence appeared more severe than those witnessed by the country in 2023, as well as during the “yellow vest” protests in 2018 and 2019.
In the face of escalating social tension, and with the government lacking a parliamentary majority, the authorities pledged to deal firmly with those responsible for the riots.
For his part, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said, during his inspection of police officers in central Paris, that "it is a miracle that the toll was not higher than that."
Locorno stressed that the government would not be "intimidated" by the violence, blaming groups of the "extreme left" and outlaws responsible for the unrest.
“To those who clearly want to use this violence as a prelude to the presidential election, I say clearly: We will not allow ourselves to be intimidated. No one will impose their political agenda through violence,” he wrote on the X platform.
These unrest come six months before the presidential elections, amid the escalation of the political confrontation between the leader of the Proud France Party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and the leader of the far-right, Marine Le Pen, who recent opinion polls indicate that they may face each other in the second round of the elections.
Meanwhile, the head of the French Trade and Distribution Federation, Alexandre Bombard, warned of the economic repercussions of the violence and looting, saying he expected “major economic and financial consequences.”
The acts of violence and vandalism that France witnessed on Saturday affected government and historical buildings in a number of cities, most notably the Limoges municipal building, in the center of the country, a fire destroyed a large part of it.
A local official said that the historic building, which dates back to the nineteenth century and is more than 140 years old, suffered severe damage after masked protesters stormed it and set it on fire.
Local authorities reported that the fire caused parts of the building to collapse, while firefighting teams struggled to control the flames.
In Lyon, southeastern France, a branch of the tourism office was set on fire in the city center, in a historic building that is one of its prominent landmarks.
The mayor of Lyon, Gregory Doucet, described the incident as a “tragedy,” telling BFMTV: “It breaks our hearts, because the building is historic and very well-known, and is considered one of the city’s most prominent landmarks.”
Local police said that "aggressive individuals" prevented fire brigades from dealing with the fire safely.
In Marseille, the second largest city in France, protesters briefly stormed the municipal building after destroying its entrance, while Mayor Benoît Payen described them as "vandals."
One of the protesters chanted during the storming: “We are storming the Bastille prison,” referring to the storming of the famous castle during the French Revolution in 1789.
The city of Lille, in the north of the country, witnessed the storming of the municipal building and parts of it were vandalized, while the local authorities in Bordeaux, southwest of France, announced that the official headquarters of the governorate had been looted and vandalized.
In Grenoble, at the foothills of the French Alps, a fire broke out in a building downtown, coinciding with acts of violence and looting in its streets.
As for the capital, Paris, clashes broke out between protesters and security forces in Place de la République on Saturday, where police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators, according to Agence France-Presse reporters.
Police deployed heavily in a number of neighborhoods in the capital, confronting groups of protesters, most of whom wore black clothes and masks, and some of whom threw projectiles and fired fireworks at the security forces.
As the march began, the police also used water cannons to disperse demonstrators, which they described as violent.
In a separate incident in the capital, about 100 people targeted the headquarters of the C News television channel, owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, and threw projectiles at its facade, according to police.
The protests come after weeks of demonstrations started by high school students in late September, demanding improved education conditions and increased spending on schools.
The protest movement was launched from schools in poor suburbs north of Paris, amid complaints of a shortage of teachers and employees, overcrowded classrooms, and deteriorating school buildings.
The protests quickly expanded to include all parts of the country, as students closed the entrances to hundreds of schools, before trade unions and other protest groups joined their movement.
Student demonstrations over the past weeks witnessed violent confrontations with the police, which sparked criticism of the security forces’ methods of dealing with protesters.
A 15-year-old boy lost one of his hands after he picked up a stun grenade during the protests, while the Police Oversight Authority is investigating complaints regarding its members’ use of violence against demonstrators.
For his part, Education Minister Edouard Jeffrey called for an end to the violence, stressing that dialogue is the only way to address the crisis.
The protests have become a focus of tension between French political forces, with the presidential elections scheduled for 2027 approaching.
The leader of the "Proud France" party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, announced his support for the student movement, and participated in one of the demonstrations in support of it last Tuesday.
