At least 400 arrested as protests turn violent in France; PM blames far left

At least 400 people were arrested, and fires and looting hit several cities on Saturday as mass protests over the cost of living, joined by students, swept France, drawing an estimated 550,000 demonstrators. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu blamed "ultra-left" groups for organising the violence.

In Paris, a car and a newspaper kiosk were set on fire, and police used tear gas and water cannons on violent groups, while most marchers stayed peaceful. Protesters set up barricades on the Champs-Élysées despite a police ban. In Lyon, hooded individuals vandalised and set fire to a branch of the tourist office on Place Bellecour, and the regional prefecture said firefighters were initially prevented from reaching the blaze. Masked individuals destroyed the roof and a wing of the Limoges city hall with fire, forcefully stormed the Marseille city hall to smash furniture and topple a historic bust of Marianne, and broke past security lines to vandalise the municipal offices in Lille and Grenoble.

Lecornu condemned the violence in a post on X. He said peaceful demonstrations belong in the Republic, but fires, looting and attacks do not. He said ultra-left groups had organised the violence in several cities, and that police and gendarmes faced "violence of extreme intensity" and deserved the country's full support. He also said no mobilisation should be a pretext for violence against demonstrators.

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"To those who clearly intend for this violence to serve as a 'warm-up' ahead of the presidential election, we will not be intimidated," Lecornu wrote, adding that no one would impose a political agenda through violence. He did not name those he was addressing. Replying to a post by hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he called blaming police chiefs for the violence a "dangerous and cynical inversion of responsibilities." He also pointed to a bill due in the Senate this month that would make rioters financially liable for damage.

French President Emmanuel Macron says there is “no place for violence”. In a social media post, he writes that those "who have vandalised and attacked" prefectures and businesses and "looted" town halls will be "prosecuted and punished".

"We will all stand united against the sowers of chaos, who seek only to bring down our institutions and prevent those who peacefully express their demands from doing so," he adds.

Mélenchon, whose La France Insoumise party backs the student movement, said most demonstrations were peaceful except where police restricted protests. The right and the far-right National Rally backed the police, while several left-wing figures criticised the policing and defended the protesters' demands.

The unrest began in September at the Saint-Exupéry high school outside Paris, where pupils protested over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and overheated buildings. It spread nationwide, and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told MPs on October 7 that arrests had reached 6,629. Lecornu told the Senate on October 14 that 937 police and gendarmes, 248 students and 149 education staff had been injured. Nuñez has said 36 investigations into alleged police violence have been opened. A day later, Lecornu said the movement no longer looked like a student movement but one of urban violence, and said he feared violence on Saturday.

Saturday's protests began on social media over fuel prices and widened into a broader protest against the cost of living, with unions and self-described "yellow vests" taking part. Lecornu, a Macron ally, took office in September 2025 after his predecessor lost a confidence vote over budget cuts. He is Macron's seventh prime minister.