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Buildings
set ablaze and more than 1,200 arrested as police clash with protesters across
France
Police
fire teargas in Paris and Limoges town hall ‘largely lost’ to fire – with
officials blaming violence on ‘ultra-left’
Kim Willsher in Paris and William Christou
Sun 18
Oct 2026 02.01 CEST
More than
1,200 people were arrested in France
on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with
police, with some demonstrations later spiralling out of control as buildings
were set ablaze and shops looted.
Police
fired teargas in confrontations with protesters, as demonstrations across
France were boosted by other groups angry about high prices and the fraying of
a social welfare system. While hundreds of thousands protested peacefully in
street marches in scores of cities, violent fringe groups targeted public
buildings, luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and
officers.
Late on
Saturday, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,200 people had been arrested
and 150 police hurt.
Interior
minister Laurent Nuñez said the official demonstration had been hijacked by casseurs
– “opportunistic delinquents who had seen a chance to pillage and loot … we
will find them and deal with them firmly”.
He said
the state was not planning to declare a state of emergency but added: “I very
strongly condemn the violence we have seen.”
In the
city of Limoges, the town hall was “largely lost” to a fire set by masked
protesters, the top regional official told the AFP news agency.
A fire
burns at the Limoges city hall. Photograph: Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty Images
“The roof
has collapsed on to lower floors, except the west wing, and two-thirds of the
exterior has already disappeared,” local prefect Maurice Barate, said, adding
that the extensive damage to the 143-year-old building was a “catastrophe for
heritage.”
In
Marseille, protesters stormed the town hall, ramming the door with security
barriers they removed from the street. They briefly managed to enter the
municipal building, where a protester spray-painted an “A” for anarchy on a
wall before the police removed them.
Around
Place de la République in central Paris, a peaceful march
turned violent, with police firing teargas at black-clad and masked rioters who
threw fireworks and paving stones, attacked a bank and looted a sports shop.
“We’re taking the Bastille!” one demonstrator yelled.
Others
set wheelie bins on fire and threw firecrackers inside or pushed over glass
recycling bins and picked up the bottles inside to use as missiles. A lorry was
set on fire and flames spread to a nearby building.
Along
Boulevard Magenta, one of the main south-north axis north of Place de la
République running through a mostly working-class area, dozens of shops were
broken into and looted.
Groups
tried to break into the Galeries Lafayette department store, smashed banks,
ransacked a Lacoste store and other boutiques and looted a mobile phone shop.
Residents
in surrounding streets were forced to close windows and doors as huge clouds of
teargas rose to roof level.
Saturday’s
mobilisation followed calls on social media to revive the gilets jaunes
(yellow vests) movement, which emerged in 2018 against social injustice.
The
protests began last month at
schools in the poor northern suburbs of Paris, where anger over teacher absences and shabby facilities
quickly morphed into a nationwide movement against inequality, weak public
spending and falling standards.
French
riot police detain a protester in Marseille. Photograph: Thibaud
Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
Saturday’s
protests called for teachers and students, labourers, pensioners and farmers to
join the protests and widen the movement.
The CGT,
one of France’s biggest labour unions, has also backed the protests, calling
for “higher wages and pensions, lower prices and the protection of public
services that meet people’s needs”.
About 45%
of French people are worried about the rising cost of living and inflation,
according to a 2,000-person survey conducted in October.
The
violence began on the sidelines of marches in the capital and other cities
which the interior ministry reported were attended by 550,000 people. The CGT
union said 800,000 people participated.
Protesters
in hi-vis vests blocked streets, an echo of the unrest
that dogged President Emmanuel Macron’s previous term, and in Marseille
rubbish bins were set alight.
Police
officers clash with protesters in Paris. Photograph: Kiran Ridley/AFP/Getty
Images
Both the
far left and far right in France sought to capitalise on the protest movement,
with the left positioning itself on the side of the protesters and the right
backing the police.
Jean-Luc
Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, marched in a
demonstration on Tuesday and has expressed support for student protesters. He
urged demonstrators to stay away from looting, describing it as “contrary to
our methods”.
Far-right
candidate Marine Le Pen condemned “the rioters” and claimed that the party of
Melenchon, had “legitimised the violence”.
A large
police presence was visible in central Paris, especially near landmarks such as
the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, which
were excluded from the routes of the two official demonstrations.
Whole
streets in Paris “have been devastated”, the city’s mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire,
said.
A
protester waves a French national flag during clashes before a demonstration in
Marseille. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
“We are
fighting because the cost of living is too harsh, because the price of fuel
is too high, because high school pupils are being violently attacked and hurt
all over the country just for trying to protest and ask for more teachers and
decent learning conditions,” said a 19-year-old protester in Paris who gave her
name as Lola.
Macron is
entering the final stretch of his presidency, leaving behind a polarised
electorate and a badly fragmented political landscape.
On
Friday, the president appealed for calm and respect for people and property as
officials warned of possible violence.
“There is
a constitutional right to protest and to express oneself, and I have always
been vigilant and attentive that that right is fully respected,” he said. “But
this right comes with the need to respect. Respect for people, respect for
property, and therefore a commitment not to insult or destroy.”
Macron
denounced as “unacceptable” the potential presence of people “solely to cause
damage and create unrest”.
Protesters
vandalise a municipal police station in Marseille. Photograph: Thibaud
Moritz/AFP/Getty Images
Nuñez
said hundreds of protest actions and more than 80 marches were expected
nationwide, including spontaneous gatherings, street demonstrations and
blockades.
Police
banned some other proposed gatherings in central Paris. Many Métro stations
were closed on Saturday at the police’s request, including those around the
Champs-Élysées and near the presidential palace, parliament and government
offices.
In recent
weeks, there have been thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries, and schools
set on fire as the new school year descended into nationwide student protests
that are influencing the country’s presidential election campaign and drawing
international attention.
The
police watchdog is investigating at least two dozen allegations of police
violence, while the French prime minister said that more than 900 police
officers had been injured.
Among
protesters, particularly gruesome wounds suffered by some teenagers have been blamed
on police riot-control weapons. Nuñez suspended the use of a type of police
stun grenade against the young demonstrators after a 15-year-old lost a hand,
but said that they could be used on Saturday.
On
Tuesday, the climate and social justice activist Greta Thunberg joined students
at a school in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.
Agencies
contributed reporting
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