France wakes up with a strong hangover from the violence that shook the mobilizations throughout the country on Saturday. Early this morning, the Police reported that among the more than 1,200 detainees, 855 of them were in Paris, "a record number." 150 police and gendarmes were injured. The scene this morning in some commercial areas in the center of Paris was one of shop windows completely destroyed with glass in the streets and still barricaded in some of them with containers, fences, bicycles and street furniture.
In an appearance before the press shortly before midnight, the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, pointed out that the Minister of Justice, Gerald Darmanin, has given instructions to prosecutors to request provisional detention for those detained, reports Efe. He justified these instructions because those arrested presented "particularly violent and dangerous profiles."
"You cannot allow a minority to destroy and always be the same ones who pay," he added after having emphasized that in Paris there had been attempts to attack "the centers of power" such as the Elysee palace, Matignon, which is the official residence of the prime minister, or the National Assembly. "Therefore it is clearly a political maneuver that accepts violence," he said before stressing that "we will not allow ourselves to be intimidated."
Chaos, looting and violence shook French cities during the marches this Saturday called by students, unions and the yellow vests, which brought together some 550,000 protesters. Emmanuel Macron came out of caution and attacked "the sowers of chaos who only seek to overthrow our institutions and prevent those who peacefully express their demands from doing so." The president, the object of the anger of the protesters shouting "Macron, resign!", has warned that those responsible for the destruction and looting "will be persecuted and punished."
The violence of the clashes was evident in places such as Saint-Etienne, where a young man in his 20s lost his right hand in an incident that occurred during the protests. It is unknown whether the incident is again linked to the use of stun grenades by the police, following the amputation of a hand suffered on October 5 by a student in Lens.
In Marseille, the mayor of Benoît Payan had to directly ask Emmanuel Macron for police reinforcements after dozens of protesters broke into City Hall. In several cities there were direct attacks against police stations. In Lyon a tourist office burned. In Paris, the socialist mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, condemned "the methodical looting of the streets" despite highlighting that the vast majority of protesters wanted to "march peacefully."
The chain of violent incidents culminated in the arson of the Limoges town hall, the flames of which were not put out until early Sunday morning. The fire caused by a group of protesters who entered the building through the basement caused the tower of the monumental building built in 1883 to fall to the astonishment of the neighbors. The building is "very seriously damaged" and "largely lost," said the mayor of the municipality.
"They set fire to a building inside which there were people: public officials, local police officers and municipal services personnel," the State representative, Maurice Barate, stressed to AFP, specifying that no one was injured.
The scenes of authentic "urban guerrilla" began to take shape after noon, when the police cordoned off the Place de la République in Paris and began to launch tear gas in response to the provocations of young people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas. The peacefully gathered crowd ended up suffering the attack of the riot police and joining in the shouts of "We all hate the police" and "ACAB" (acronym in English for "All police officers are bastards").
The local prefecture contributed in some way to the chaos with the struggle with the organizers over the route of the march, which in the end advanced towards the Place de Clichy, while a part of the protesters decided on their own to "take the Bastille" and another part dedicated themselves to sowing chaos at the Saint-Martin gate. The Police warned in advance that concentrations in the rest of the city were "unauthorized" between seven in the morning and ten at night.
Throughout the day, the tension shifted towards the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées, heavily protected by the police due to fear of demonstrations in front of the Elysée palace or Matignon, the official residence of the prime minister. The agents broke up on the fly an "unauthorized" gathering on the rue de Boissy dAngals that was advancing precisely towards the Elysée.
"Groups of hundreds or thousands of rioters have attacked the forces of order," declared Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez at a press conference. "The actions bear the very clear stamp of the extreme radical left, which has provoked these degenerate actions."
