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Police and protesters clashed violently in Paris and other French cities on Saturday as half a million people marched against soaring inflation, with one demonstrator’s hand blown off, multiple blazes set and dozens of shops stripped bare by looters.
The widespread unrest follows weeks of student protests and deepens political uncertainty in France as it readies for elections in six months’ time to replace President Emmanuel Macron.
“No room for violence in our Republic. Those who have broken, attacked the prefectures as well as businesses, looted even our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished,” wrote Macron late on Saturday in a post on X.
“To the law enforcement forces, guarantors of the right to demonstrate, I express the support of the Nation.”
“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 added.
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu slammed the “violence of extreme intensity” during the day.
“Peaceful demonstrations have their rightful place in our Republic. Arson, looting, and attacks have no place whatsoever. Today, ultraleft groups have orchestrated violence in several French cities; delinquents have joined in to pillage and destroy,” he wrote on X.
Around 550,000 people turned out for the demonstrations, with some 400 arrests made, the interior ministry said, while the CGT union said 800,000 people turned out.
Police used tear gas and water cannon against masked protesters in Paris and other cities who threw projectiles and aimed fireworks. Several parked cars were torched in the capital, with smoke rising over the centre.
In the southern city of Saint-Etienne, a male protester had his hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, a police source revealed to the AFP news agency.
His maiming came after a 15-year-old lost his hand on 5 October to a police stun grenade during another protest in the northern city of Lens.
In Lyon, protesters set ablaze a tourist office in the city centre, and smashed their way into town halls in the cities of Marseille and Lille, and a police compound in Bordeaux, vandalising the premises before leaving.
In the city of Limoges, flames reached the roof of the town hall after a group attacked the building after protests.
Dozens of shops were looted in Paris, Marseille, Nice, Bordeaux and Lille, where an Apple store was stripped, according to eyewitnesses.
A crowd of more than 300 protesters tried to move up Paris’s Champs-Elysees, home to flagship luxury stores. As police fired tear gas to block their way, they yelled “All cops are bastards” (ACAB) – which was one of the main slogans of the protest.
Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said “entire streets have been devastated” in the capital region.
Additional sources • AFP