‘Carnage’ on French streets as half a million people join protests

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to hold accountable “those who sought to bring down the Republic” after half a million people took to the streets in protests which in places erupted into violence.

One protester and one police officer are dead in events linked to the cost-of-living and education rallies.

Authorities said the 22-year-old officer was struck by a “third-party vehicle” in Nantes, while local media reported a protester died after what is believed to be a medical episode.

Dozens of government buildings have been torched.

In an address, Macron said there would be retribution.

“Those who looted will have to pay back for the damage,” Macron said, according an Associated Press translation.

“And those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held accountable.”

In a post on X, Macron said there was “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,” he said.

“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.”

US President Donald Trump blamed the riots on immigration, despite protesters articulating their anger about the rising cost of living and France’s education standards.

“France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” Trump said.

“Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!”

Today producer Briana Goodchild, a Paris resident, told the show this morning the protests had been nothing short of “carnage”.

“It’s definitely a day to be remembered,” she said.

“As my French friends warned me, they told me, Saturday was going to be the revolution.”

She said the escalation of the protests was in part due to the involvement of the gilets jaunes or “yellow vests”, a protest movement that rose in 2018.

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“Until we see big cost of living measures come through I think we’re going to keep seeing protests, so it could be every Saturday for the foreseeable future,” she said.

Macron to hold emergency meeting

Macron allowed that the government should listen to public grievances, and said that he would hold an emergency meeting with French mayors to discuss public safety tomorrow.

Macron also said that he had asked the government to convene stakeholders – including students, teachers, trade unionists and others – this week to discuss “concrete proposals,” according to a readout from Reuters.

Police have detained more than 2000 people, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, adding that more than 600 police officers were injured.

Scenes unfolded again overnight of police officers launching tear gas into the hallowed Place de la République, where dozens of people gathered in response to messages on social media to “continue the movement,” BFMTV reported.

In the central city of Limoges, the 143-year-old town hall was set ablaze on Saturday, with video showing its spire collapsing. In Marseille, masked protesters dressed all in black broke into city hall and defaced the building, and in Lyon, protesters torched the city’s tourist office.

Lawmakers and regional officials launched mounting criticism over the government’s law enforcement plan, BFMTV said, with French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu set to meet the mayors of Paris, Lyon and Marseille, who called for greater reinforcement to repair the damage.

As night fell in Paris on Saturday, groups of young people looted shops and started fires as protests wound down, prompting police to respond with tear gas and baton charges in the narrow streets.

Alexandre Bompard, chief executive of retail giant Carrefour, said in a social media post Sunday that around 1500 stores across the country were affected by violence.

The destruction followed what had been largely peaceful protests, which have grown out of sweeping student-led rallies that gripped parts of France last month, sparking a broader movement against crumbling schools, the spiking cost of living, and perceived government inaction.

The rallies have become emblematic of long-simmering, intergenerational anger among people who say their calls for social and political change are going unmet by negligent governments.

Some 550,000 protesters hit the streets across France, including 110,000 in Paris, Nunez said on Saturday.

Organisers said far more people turned out.

“There’s an accumulation of wealth and power that’s completely out of control,” one protester, who gave her name as Pauline, told CNN in Paris on Saturday.

“We’re also here to support the youth. There are victories, but if we look at the bigger picture, it’s not going in the right direction,” the 36-year-old added.

Another demonstrator complained of “less democracy” and a “concentration of power” under Macron’s leadership. “There are billionaires who control the media,” Louise, 38, told CNN. “We are fighting to change things.”

Macron slammed “sowers of chaos” for interfering with peaceful protests, and warned late on Saturday that “those who have broken, attacked (police) prefectures, as well as businesses, looted even our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished.”

“We do not back down in the face of rioters and those who’ve come to attack law enforcement,” said the Paris Police Prefecture – the body that oversees the Paris Police Force, emergency services and various other administrative departments – adding that its staffers stood “their ground with courage and professionalism.”

‘Two worlds, two realities’

The police response to the weeks of protest has come under scrutiny. Earlier in the week, that response had left a 14-year-old boy with a fractured jaw. Another police officer was captured on camera using a headlock on a girl in the northwestern area of Alençon, an action now prohibited by law.

A protester in the city of Saint-Étienne, south-west of Lyon, lost his hand during a march there on Saturday, a police source told BFMTV.

This is the second reported instance of a demonstrator losing their hand in the current wave of student protests.

A student in the northeastern city of Lens lost his hand after reportedly picking up a grenade earlier this month, prompting the temporary suspension of one type of stun grenade by police. That ban, which still allowed police to use several different grenades, has now been rescinded.

Overall, authorities said that the “vast majority of individuals” had demonstrated peacefully on Saturday, according to BFMTV.

Posting on X, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise Party, emphasised that the majority of demonstrators on Sunday had made their point peacefully. “

While news channels are flooded with images of violence in dozens of cities, everything is unfolding peacefully with tens of thousands of people calmly mobilised. Two worlds, two realities,” he said.

Youth activists also led solidarity protests in Belgium, Albania and Italy, where police arrested more than 70 people for identification in the city of Milan on Sunday, according to CNN affiliate SkyTG24.

Earlier this fall, high school students in France organised scattered protests demanding reduced class sizes, increased spending on teachers, investments in infrastructure designed to withstand the climate crisis and an end to police violence against young people.

In the past decade and a half, a rise in fertility coupled with funding cuts has led to more students, but fewer teachers in classrooms.

The French Education Minister Edouard Geffray has met with student protesters multiple times in recent weeks, although an agreement is yet to be made.

Reported with CNN.