France woke up this Sunday to a desolate landscape of "urban guerrilla" after the fires, looting and violent clashes with the Police that left more than 2,000 arrested (855 in Paris) and 500 officers injured during the protests. The dramatic scenes of burned cars and broken glass were joined by the smoking image of the Limoges town hall, burned during the vandalism that lasted until the early hours of Sunday morning. The president, Emmanuel Macron, will address the nation at 8 p.m. The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has called an inter-ministerial meeting for an hour earlier.
The city councils of Paris, Marseille and Lyon called the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, to account for the "lack of resources in the face of a level of violence that we have never seen." "It is evident that the forces of order were overwhelmed," declared the vice mayor of Paris, Lamia El Aaraje. "There were people who walked entire streets looting and destroying everything, while neighbors and merchants rebuked the city council asking: But where are the police?"
More than 1,000 officers are involved in clearing debris from entire neighborhoods in the center of Paris, from the Place de la République to the Porte Saint-Martin, where some of the toughest clashes took place on the margins of the peaceful march in which more than a thousand protesters participated. The Police responded with tear gas and water cannons to the provocations of groups of masked young people dressed in black who began the riots around one in the afternoon, but the vandalism soon got out of control. Some 1,500 shops and businesses were damaged across the country and many have been looted, confirmed Alexandre Bompard, president of the Federation of Commerce and Distribution, a group representing the sector. The cost will amount to "several hundred million euros," he added.
The Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, meanwhile anticipated "an extremely firm judicial response" and claimed to have given instructions to prosecutors to orchestrate a national response to "the high-intensity violence committed on the margins of the marches."
In Lyon, faced with riots of "unprecedented magnitude", the priority of law enforcement was "protecting lives", the prefect of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Etienne Guyot, told the press. "We have had three types of situations: at first, a peaceful demonstration - which brought together 20,000 people, according to the prefecture -, very quickly replaced by 'much more violent and aggressive radicals who invaded public space,'" he continued. "And these rioters were joined by looters and thieves, who methodically looted several stores," he added.
"The Police were present everywhere, to the extent possible, with the extensive device available, but we were facing, and I think it must be reiterated (...), a demonstration of unprecedented magnitude throughout France," Guyot estimated when asked about the lack of police forces. "I have had resources. Throughout France there have been resources. Now, I cannot put a police officer in front of every store," he insisted. "When I see that tourist office burned down, attacked, when I see the merchants, some of whom have lost everything because they have been attacked, because they have been looted, this morning I have felt a very strong emotion on several occasions," he stressed, booed by the neighbors shouting "Doucet, resign."
During an appearance before the press at midnight on Saturday, Lecornu assured that the detainees present "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 Elysée palace, Matignon (official residence of the prime minister) or the National Assembly. "We are clearly a political maneuver that accepts violence," he stressed.
Emmanuel Macron, for his part, attacked in his account in X against "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."
Limoges town hall, destroyed
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."
