Mayhem broke out beside peaceful demonstrations in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere as resentment rises over affordability and government budget cuts.
By Stacy Meichtr
PARIS—Rioters rampaged through cities across France on Saturday as weeks of student protests broadened to a wider movement of people angry over the rising cost of living.
In Marseille, rioters used a metal barricade to ram through the door of city hall, allowing a crowd of young masked people to storm the building and graffiti its lobby. In Lyon, the city’s tourism center was set ablaze and stores were vandalized. Flames rose from the roof of the town hall of Limoges in central France.
In Paris, rioters torched cars and blocked the streets with burning barricades. Security forces scrambled to reinforce the area around the Élysée Palace and other sensitive sites after protesters sought to converge on government buildings, according to French officials.
The scenes marked a sharp escalation in violence for a protest movement that has strained the country’s security forces and political establishment.
“Those who smash—attacking our prefectures and shops, looting our town halls—will be prosecuted and punished,” French President Emmanuel Macron said, describing the violence as an effort to “bring down our institutions.”
The chaos on Saturday erupted amid a nationwide protest over the cost of living that drew tens of thousands of people of all ages onto the streets, ranging from high-school students to some of the country’s most prominent left-wing politicians. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left firebrand who is rising in polls ahead of next spring’s presidential election, spearheaded one group of protesters marching in Paris.
Lyon Mayor Grégory Doucet said rioters armed with Molotov cocktails were operating “in parallel” with peaceful protesters.
“The situation is really disorienting,” he said.
French authorities said 550,000 people participated nationwide, 110,000 in Paris alone.
Protesters are demanding the government take costly measures to boost consumers’ purchasing power and invest in the education system. Their demands, however, are colliding with the financial realities of a cash-strapped French state.
Investors have pushed France’s borrowing costs to some of their highest levels in decades amid concerns the country’s political class is incapable of reining in public spending that has resulted in years of budget deficits above 5% of gross domestic product.
In a bid to reassure markets, the government has proposed €43 billion, equivalent to $49 billion, in spending cuts for its 2027 budget. The proposed cuts, however, have deepened public anger and fueled the protests.
“To those who clearly want to use these acts of violence as a ‘warm-up’ before the presidential election, I say this plainly: we will not be intimidated,” Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Saturday, adding: “Public money is scarce: it must fund our public services, not endlessly repair what vandals destroy.
The protests began last month with blockades at high schools as students demanded more teachers, smaller classes and greater investment in dilapidated school buildings. On Saturday the protests spread to trade unions and members of the yellow-vest protest movement that began in 2018 over fuel prices—becoming a locus of broader discontent over the state of France’s public services.
The government has mobilized thousands of police in a bid to contain the violence. Clashes with police in previous protests, however, have resulted in gruesome injuries to minors, exacerbating tensions and fueling turnout at subsequent demonstrations. One teenager’s hand was blown off by a dispersal grenade, another lost an eye, while a 14-year-old boy suffered a jaw fracture.
“I’ve attended protests since I was a kid, and I’ve never seen anything like what’s going on in Paris right now,” Sandrine Rousseau, a green party lawmaker, told French TV.
As the protests have gathered force, the French electorate has become increasingly polarized. Polls show public support is rising for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the front-runner in next year’s presidential election. Mélenchon, the far-left leader, has emerged as her main rival while support has stalled for candidates who once governed under Macron.
“The French people, who can no longer bear being caught between the austerity and fiscal hammering of those in power and the insurrectionary activists, must hold out for a few more months,” Le Pen wrote on X.
